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voLxxin 

No.  2 


rSYCIIOLOOICAL  REVIEW  PUBLICATIONS  ^ 

1917  i 


THE 


Psychological  Monographs 


EDITED  BY 

JAMES  ROWLAND  ANGELL,  University  of  Chicago 
HOWARD  C.  WARREN,  Princeton  University  (Review) 

JOHN  B.  WATSON,  John  Hopkins  University  (/.  of  Exp.  Psych.) 
SHEPHERD  1.  FRANZ,  Govt.  Hosp.  for  Insane  (Bulletin)  and 
MADISON  BENTLEY,  University  of  Illinois  (Index) 


STUDIES  FROM  THE  PSYCHOLOGICAL  LABORA¬ 
TORY  OF  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO 


Whole  vs.  Part  Methods  in  Motor 

Learning.  A  Comparative  Study 

# 

LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN.  Ph.D. 

Assistant  Professor  of  Psychology  in  the  University  of  Rochester 


PSYCHOLOGICAL  REVIEW  COMPANY 

PRINCETON,  N.  J. 

AND  LANCASTER,  PA. 


Agents:  G.  E.  STECHERT  &  CO.,  London  (2  Star  Yard,  Carey  St.  W.  C.); 
Leipzig  (Koenigstr.,  37);  Paris  (16  me  de  Cond6) 


1 


•1 

J 

■: 


ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 


Professor  James  R.  Angell  and  Professor  Harvey  A.  Carr 
have  aided  the  research.  Such  assistance  has  been  but  part  of  a 
broader  kindness  to  the  writer. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2018  with  funding  from 
Princeton  Theological  Seminary  Library 


https://archive.org/details/wholevspartmethoOOpech_0 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Chapter  I.  Nature  of  the  Problem .  i 

Chapter  II.  Comparison  of  the  ‘Whole’  and  ‘Part’  Meth¬ 
ods  With  Returns  Permitted .  lo 

Chapter  III.  Influence  of  the  Prevention  of  Returns.  ...  15 

Chapter  IV.  Elements  of  Waste  in  ‘Part’  Learning. 

(a)  Loss  Due  to  Negative  Transfer  in 

the  Learning  of  the  Motor  Units.  .  21 

(b)  Loss  Due  to  Disintegration  Through 

Time  .  23 

(c)  Loss  Due  to  Retro-Active  Inhibition  24 

(d)  Loss  Due  to  Contiguity  in  Unit  Func¬ 

tioning  .  25 

(e)  Loss  Due  to  Unit  Incompatibility  in 

a  Larger  Series  .  26 

Chapter  V.  Place  Association  and  its  Relation  to  Im¬ 
provement  of  the  ‘Part’  Method .  29 

( 1 )  ‘Direct  Repetitive’  .  32 

(2)  ‘Reversed  Repetitive’  .  33 

(3)  ‘Progressive  Part’  .  35 

(4)  ‘Elaborative  Part’  .  36 

Chapter  VI.  Elements  of  Advantage  in  ‘Part’  Learning.  .  48 

(a)  Transfer  .  49 

(b)  Learning  Effort  and  Length  of  Ma¬ 

terial  .  55 

Chapter  VII.  Massed  vs.  Distributed  Effort  in  ‘Whole’ 

and  ‘Part’  Learning .  59 

Chapter  VIII.  Comparison  and  Summary .  67 

Appendix  .  70 

Bibliography  .  79 


WHOLE  Vs.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING— 
A  COMPARATIVE  STUDY 

CHAPTER  1. 

Nature  of  the  Problem 

One  of  the  several  problems  of  the  general  pedagogical-psy¬ 
chological  field  that  warrants  full  analysis  is  the  ‘whole’  vs. 
‘part’  method  of  learning.  Whole  method  procedure  demands 
the  continuous  repetition  of  an  entire  body  of  material  until  the 
desired  stage  of  mastery  is  attained.  Part  procedure  requires 
an  initial  mastery  of  definite  sections  of  the  material  and  the 
final  connection  of  these  different  sections  in  proper  serial  order. 
This  ‘whole’ — ‘part’  problem  loomed  large  during  the  past  de¬ 
cade,  but  interest  in  it  seems  to  have  waned,  due  no  doubt  to 
the  acceptance  of  the  experimental  evidence  as  final.  This  evi¬ 
dence  was  first  deduced  from  the  learning  of  the  Ebbinghaus 
nonsense  syllables.  This  pioneer  in  the  scientific  study  of  mem¬ 
ory  set  the  problem.  Meumann  (ii)  presents  his  own  work, 
planned  to  supplement  the  splendid  efforts  of  Steffens  (19). 
Ephrussi  (4),  Neumann  (13),  Pentschew  (15)  of  the  German 
laboratories,  Larguier  des  Bancels  (10)  of  the  French,  and 
Henderson  (6),  Kuhlmann  (8),  Lakenan  (9),  Pyle  (17),  Pyle 
and  Snyder  (18),  Watt  (21),  and  numerous  other  writers  in 
English  have  investigated  the  problem.  The  statements  of  Meu¬ 
mann  (ii)  may  be  summarized  as  typical,  i.e.,  learning  by 
parts  becomes  more  disadvantageous  the  more  the  material  is 
subdivided;  conversely,  the  more  closely  the  ‘part’  learning  ap¬ 
proximates  to  ‘whole’  learning,  the  more  rapidly  and  certainly 
is  the  task  accomplished.  The  learning  advantage  for  the 
‘whole’  method  is  even  greater  with  meaningful  material  than 
with  the  nonsensical.  The  superiority  of  the  ‘whole’  method  is 
manifested  by  fewer  repetitions  being  required  for  mastery, 
more  correct  formations  of  associations,  and  more  permanent 
retention.  These  results  hold  for  the  adult  and  also  for  the 


2 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


child,  as  soon  as  the  latter  becomes  aware  of  the  advantages  of 
the  ‘whole’  method.  These  findings  are  likewise  true  for  ma¬ 
terial  not  constituting  a  coherent  whole.  There  are  possible 
mediating  procedures  of  the  ‘whole’  method,  such  as  brief  rest¬ 
ing  pauses  in  the  forward  directed  method  or  the  temporary 
delay  upon  parts  of  obvious  difficulty. 

The  material  presented  and  the  evidence  reviewed  lead  to 
the  acceptance  of  the  ‘whole’  method  as  the  more  efficient  in 
the  learning  of  nonsense  material  and  poetry  of  short  lengths. 
For  longer  lengths,  Pyle  and  Snyder  (i8)  verified  the  results 
for  poetic  material  of  240  lines  and  Lakenan  (9)  for  prose  of 
300  words. 

Following  Steffens,  Meumann,  Pentschew,  and  others,  the 
following  causes  of  waste  in  part  learning  are,  perhaps,  sug¬ 
gested,  though  none  of  these  have  been  subjected  to  laboratory 
testing. 

(a)  Learning  of  transitions  between  units  (b)  Learning  of 
backward  directed  associations.  (c)  Break  up  of  helpful 
mediate  associations  and  the  disturbance  of  the  absolute  position 
assigned  to  each  item  during  the  learning  of  its  own  part  or 
section,  (d)  Lack  of  uniformity  in  distribution  of  the  learn¬ 
ing.  (e)  Loss  of  the  aid  of  logical  coherence  with  sense 
material. 

The  above  brief  survey  points  to  the  wide  interest  the  prob¬ 
lem  has  attained  and  to  the  strong  agreement  of  the  experimental 
findings.  But  the  interest  has  not  been  carried  over  into  the 
motor  field  and  very  few  references  have  been  made  to  the 
conditions  as  they  would  appear  in  definite  class-room  situa¬ 
tions.  Parker  (14)  is  a  notable  exception.  In  his  recent 
“Methods  of  Teaching  in  High  Schools,”  he  suggests  that,  in 
the  school  activities  of  the  gymnasium  and  shop,  in  dancing, 
in  musical  technique,  in  the  pronunciation  of  a  foreign  language, 
etc.,  motor  control  may  in  some  instances  possibly  be  hastened 
if  attention  is  directed  toward  the  elementary  movements  in¬ 
volved.  Excluding  this  bare  suggestion,  the  question  of  the 
unit  (‘part’)  method  as  opposed  to  ‘whole’  learning  of  the 
motor  act  seems  to  have  been  disregarded  by  the  experimental 


WHOLE  VS.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING 


3 


psychologist.  Dearborn,  Ordahl,  Richardson,  Swift,  Freeman, 
Colvin,  Book,  Bryan  and  Harter,  Leuba  and  Hyde,  Ruger,  and 
Thorndike  may  be  mentioned  as  having  either  overlooked  the 
problem  or  else  considered  the  evidence  in  rote  and  logical 
learning  so  conclusive  as  to  warrant  analysis  of  the  parallel 
motor  situation  relatively  useless. 

Summarizing,  the  following  points  are  descriptive  of  the 
work  done  upon  the  problem  of  ‘whole’  vs.  ‘part’  learning:  (a) 
It  has  been  confined  to  logical  and  rote  material,  (b)  Humans 
have  been  tested  but  not  animals,  (c)  The  pure  ‘part’  method 
has  been  investigated  but  practically  no  modifications  of  it. 
(d)  Greater  economy  obtains  with  the  ‘whole’  method,  (e)  Sev¬ 
eral  proposed  explanations  of  the  waste  in  ‘part’  learning  have 
been  offered,  but  none  of  these  has  been  tested  under  controlled 
conditions. 

The  concern  of  this  research,  then,  may  be  stated  in  certain 
definite  propositions : 

(1)  To  see  whether  the  ‘whole’  and  ‘part’  findings  in  rote 
and  logical  learning  hold  for  sensory-motor,  adaptive  problems ; 

(2)  To  determine  whether  these  laws  hold  for  animals  as 
well  as  humans  when  learning  conditions  are  comparable; 

(3)  To  test  out  certain  hypotheses  and  determine  which  fac¬ 
tors  are  causative  for  economy  or  waste  in  these  methods  of 
learning ; 

(4)  To  devise  such  modifications  or  combinations  as  may  be 
better  than  either  of  the  above  methods; 

(5)  To  draw  such  conclusions  from  the  data  secured  as  may 
have  heuristic  and  practical  values  in  enforcing  or  modifying 
learning  conditions  imposed  upon  the  school  child. 

The  above  program  seems  to  the  writer  to  be  timely.  The 
poverty  of  knowledge  of  the  motor  field  is  obvious..  As  regards 
the  attempt  to  determine  universality  of  methods,  the  com¬ 
parative  psychologist  has  likewise  been  dilatory.  Barring  the 
research  of  Hunter  (7)  upon  the  Delayed  Reaction,  the  litera¬ 
ture  fails  to  show  a  thoroughgoing  attempt  to  elicit  data  for 
humans  and  animals  secured  under  identical  conditions.  If  the 
sole  excuse  for  comparative  study  is  to  secure  information  that 


4 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


will  promote  the  prediction  and  control  of  human  behavior  rather 
than  to  gather  facts  of  animal  behavior  that  have  a  value  “in 
and  for  themselves”,  then  this  research  certainly  seems  oppor¬ 
tune.  Furthermore,  this  research  makes  a  thoroughgoing  at¬ 
tempt  to  reduce  to  a  measurable  level  such  obscure  terms  as  the 
strength  of  backward  directed  associations,  the  learning  of  tran¬ 
sitions  between  units,  etc.  Finally,  the  need  for  bettering 
existing  methods  of  learning  is  always  urgent.  No  doubt 
criticism  may  be  raised  regarding  the  details  of  the  research. 
But  the  writer  hopes  that  his  methods  will  prove  stimulating 
and  suggestive  to  other  investigators  and  that  experimentation 
in  an  exact  and  truly  comparative  sense  may  be  carried  out  by 
them.  Until  the  identity  of  learning  conditions  is  established, 
any  talk  of  relative  degrees  of  intelligence  between  different  life 
forms,  universality  of  behavior,  etc.,  seems  little  short  of 
academic. 

In  the  search  for  a  motor  problem  where  conditions  of  learn¬ 
ing  might  be  as  nearly  identical  as  possible  for  the  human  and 
the  animal,  the  maze  was  selected.  The  researches  of  Small, 
Watson,  Carr,  Kinnaman,  Porter,  Yerkes,  Hicks,  Vincent, 
Bogardus  and  Henke,  and  numerous  additional  papers,  of 
scarcely  less  magnitude  have  served  to  make  the  maze  problem 
well  nigh  commonplace  with  the  psychological  experimenter. 
Perrin  (i6)  continued  the  work  of  the  Chicago  Laboratory 
with  pencil  mazes,  but  the  comparative  possibilities  of  his  work 
were  not  followed  up^  A  description  of  the  rat  and  pencil 
mazes  used  by  the  writer  and  an  analysis  of  the  method  of  ex¬ 
perimentation  bring  out  the  comparability  of  conditions  in  the 
present  research. 

Apparatus  and  Procedure 

A  maze  of  special  design  was  constructed,  the  details 
being  determined  solely  for  their  adaptability  to  the  ‘whole’  and 
‘part’  learning  methods.  This  maze  “A”  (page  70)  was  square, 

^  Since  the  above  was  written.  Dr.  Perrin’s  (s)  article  upon  the  human 
and  child  maze  reactions  has  appeared.  It  will  prove  interesting  to  the 
comparative  psychologist  to  have  this  valuable  experimentation  duplicated 
with  the  rat. 


WHOLE  VS.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING  5 

with  a  food-box  in  the  center.  The  maze  consisted 

of  four  independent  sections,  each  having  its  own  entrance 
and  exit  into  the  food-box.  A  distributing  gallery  around 
the  food-box  made  it  possible  by  the  removal  of  the  panels 
to  learn  the  sections  in  any  order  and  to  connect  them  as 
desired  without  changing  the  general  exit  into  the  com¬ 
mon  food-box.  Several  of  the  connections  are  discussed 
in  detail  in  subsecjuent  passages.  The  dotted  lines  (Fig.  I,  p.  70) 
show  the  position  of  doors  and  removable  panels.  It  is  at  once 
obvious  that  the  sectional  arrangements,  the  conditions  of  enter¬ 
ing  and  leaving  each  section,  the  absolute  simplicity  of  throw¬ 
ing  the  various  sections  into  a  larger  motor  situation,  etc., 
render  this  design  of  immense  value  for  the  problem  under 
investigation.  The  doors  and  panels  were  of  galvanized  iron 
and  worked  vertically  in  slotted  brass  posts.  The  posts  were 
securely  screwed  through  the  floor  of  the  maze  to  a  16"- 16" 
metal  plate  fastened  under  the  maze  floor.  The  passageways 
were  4"  in  width  and  height.  The  partitions  were  made  of 
stock.  Each  section  contained  three  cul  de  sacs,  each  being 
12"  in  depth.  The  final  one  in  each  section  (immediately 
preceding  the  turn  to  the  food-box)  was  the  same  in  general 
position  for  all  sections.  The  remainder  of  the  blinds  were 
differently  placed,  furnishing  four  distinct  maze  patterns.  The 
true  pathway  for  each  section  was  of  constant  length,  100". 
This  equality  of  the  four  sections  in  point  of  number  of  pos¬ 
sible  errors  and  length  of  the  true  pathway  is  partially  com¬ 
parable  to  logical  memory  conditions  (where  verses  to  be  learned 
are  of  the  same  length)  and  rote  material  (where  the  length  of 
the  series  and  its  parts  are  easily  controllable).  When  the  parts 
were  thrown  together,  the  total  distance  represented  in  the 
twelve  cul  de  sacs  was  48",  with  400''  in  the  true  pathway.  The 
interior  walls,  panels  and  doors  were  painted  black.  Covering 
was  by  four  glass  frames,  the  food-box  being  left  open.  Slid¬ 
ing  panels  were  attached  to  the  right  wall  of  errors  number  3, 
6,  9,  12.  A  rod  extended  through  the  outer  wall  of  the  maze 
box  and,  when  this  was  pulled,  it  closed  the  passageway  and 
prevented  the  return  of  the  rat  over  the  section  just  traversed. 


6 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


Such  a  device  made  it  easy  to  test  the  influence  of  the  returns 
in  maze  learning. 

A  second  maze  (Maze  B)  was  one  used  by  Bogardus  and 
Henke  (i).  This  was  used  only  to  verify  the  results  obtained 
for  one  phase  of  the  experimentation  upon  Maze  A,  namely, 
the  influence  of  preventing  returns.  It  was  unsuited  in  design 
for  further  use.  It  contained  double  section  alleys,  these  total¬ 
ling  thirteen  single  sections.  Sliding  doors  were  arranged  for 
blocking  returns  at  the  end  of  sections  marked  b,  d,  and  h. 
Consequently,  four  distinct  maze  areas  are  learned  but  these 
do  not  approach  equality  in  number  of  errors,  length  of  path¬ 
way,  etc.,  as  in  Maze  A. 

The  human  mazes  duplicated  exactly  the  pattern  of  the  ones 
just  described.  They  were  constructed  out  of  solid  brass.  The 
walls  were  made  equal  in  thickness  to  the  passage-ways,  namely, 
.7  cm.  Maze  A  had  cul  de  sacs  4  cm.  in  length.  The  true  path¬ 
way  covered  30  cm.  in  each  section.  The  entrances,  exits, 
blocking  panels,  etc,  were  solid  brass  plugs,  each  equipped  with 
a  small  metal  post  and  fitted  into  a  hole  drilled  in  the  maze 
floor.  The  plugs  were  carefully  adjusted  and  never  presented 
rough  edges.  To  the  tactual  sense,  they  were  parts  of  the  reg¬ 
ular  maze  wall.  By  adjustment,  the  sections  could  be  learned 
in  any  order  and  the  run  modified  in  the  same  ways  as  described 
above  for  the  animal  mazes.  Sections  could  be  eliminated 
without  disturbing  the  general  exit  into  the  common  open  place. 
Maze  B  was  constructed  along  similar  lines,  though  without 
any  detail  of  sectional  complexity,  since  its  utility  was  very 
limited. 

Each  brass  maze  was  laid  flat  on  the  table  when  in  use  and 
any  movement  during  the  testing  act  was  prevented  by  re¬ 
straining  strips  tacked  around  it.  The  entire  table  was  covered 
with  a  black  cloth  hood.  The  subject  could  move  his  arm 
freely  under  the  hood,  so  that  his  learning  of  the  maze  was  un¬ 
obstructed.  His  only  handicap  consisted  in  being  deprived  of 
vision.  The  hood  was  open  toward  the  observer,  so  that  the 
learning  efforts  of  each  trial  could  be  observed  and  recorded. 

Animals  selected  for  the  experimentation  were  white  rats. 


WHOLE  VS.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING 


7 


They  were  secured  mainly  from  the  local  dealers  as  needed. 
Some  few  groups  were  bred  in  the  laboratory.  No  strain 
selection  was  attempted.  For  all  the  groups,  training  began  at 
the  age  of  eight  or  nine  weeks.  The  rats  were  caged  in  groups 
varying  from  five  to  seven  for  a  cage  and  not  segregated.  The 
cages  were  placed  on  racks  around  the  walls  of  a  12'  by  12' 
room  and  were  never  moved  from  position  during  the  learning 
period.  The  rats  were  fed  in  the  food-box  for  a  period  of  ten 
days  before  the  tuition  was  begun.  They  were  allowed  to  run 
at  will  over  the  glass  top  of  the  maze.  They  became  accus¬ 
tomed  to  the  feeding  environment  and  to  human  handling. 
Food  consisted  of  a  bread  and  milk  diet,  each  group  being  fed 
in  the  food-box  seven  minutes  per  day  following  the  comple¬ 
tion  of  the  day’s  run.  Also,  each  rat  was  allowed  a  nibble  of 
food  upon  reaching  the  food-box  after  each  run.  The  cages 
were  cleaned  once  per  week  while  the  group  was  feeding.  Any 
disturbances  due  to  changes  in  bedding,  etc.,  were  hereby  given 
opportunity  for  subsiding  during  the  twenty-four  hours  in¬ 
tervening  before  the  next  trial.  During  the  day,  shades  to 
three  windows  were  raised  for  sanitary  reasons.  These  were 
invariably  drawn  when  the  experimenter  entered  the  room  for 
the  day’s  testing  and  electric  lights  were  switched  on,  one  oc¬ 
cupying  the  center  of  the  ceiling  and  directly  above  the  maze, 
the  other  a  drop  light  six  feet  to  the  rear  of  the  main  maze 
entrance.  All  testing  was  done  by  electric  light.  One  hundred 
and  seventy-seven  rats  were  trained,  ninety-one  male  and  eighty- 
six  female. 

The  human  subjects  were  university  students  from  the  writ¬ 
er’s  classes  in  Introductory  Psychology.  Their  college  classifi¬ 
cation  called  for  sophomore  standing  or  higher.  Seventy-five 
percent  were  sophomores.  There  were  fifty-three  men  and 
fifty-nine  women  used  for  the  testing.  The  testing  groups 
numbered  six.  Each  student  reported  privately  for  his  test 
at  a  period  kept  constant  from  day  to  day.  Testing  continued 
at  this  regular  period  each  day  (barring  Sunday)  until  the 
maze  was  mastered.  No  testing  was  permitted  with  visitors 
present.  The  testing  was  done  in  an  annex  to  the  experimenter’s 


8 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


office.  Constant  conditions  of  lighting,  furniture  arrangement- 
and  quietness  were  maintained.  It  is  here  in  order  to  express 
thanks  to  the  students  for  their  long-continued  and  punctual 
observance  of  the  testing  conditions.  Without  their  faithful¬ 
ness,  the  results  would  be  vitiated. 

Regarding  the  method  of  testing,  each  rat  was  given  one 
run  per  day  in  the  maze  for  four  days.  Following  this,  two 
runs  were  given  in  succession  per  day  until  four  out  of  five 
successive  runs  were  without  errors.  Learning  was  then  con¬ 
sidered  finished.  Time  was  recorded  with  a  stop-watch  from 
the  time  the  rat  turned  from  the  entrance  door  until  he  emerged 
into  the  food-box.  Errors  of  three  types  were  listed  sep¬ 
arately.  ( I )  Cul  de  sacs  entered  while  the  rat  was  going  for¬ 
ward.  These  are  called  Type  A  errors.  Entrance  into  a  cul 
de  sac  was  considered  accomplished  whenever  the  body  was 
squarely  oriented  in  the  error  pathwa}^  (2)  Cul  de  sacs  en¬ 
tered  while  the  rat  was  returning  toward  the  entrance,  i.e., 
blind  alley  errors  due  to  the  retracing.  These  are  called  Tyi>e 
B  errors.  (3)  Retracing  over  the  true  pathway.  These  are 
called  Type  C  errors.  Such  are  scored  when  the  rat  is  return¬ 
ing  toward  the  entrance.  Each  short  section  of  the  return 
pathway  traversed  constitutes  one  such  error.  During  the  runs 
the  experimenter  was  seated  back  of  the  main  entrance  and 
retained  this  position,  irrespective  of  the  complexity  of  a  par¬ 
ticular  learning  method.  The  maze  box  was  so  constructed 
that  the  rat  could  be  placed  in  the  various  entry-ways  without 
causing  any  change  in  the  experimenter’s  position. 

The  human  subjects  were  given  the  same  number  of  runs 
per  day  as  the  rats.  The  criteria  for  mastery,  scoring  of 
data,  etc.,  were  likewise  identical.  The  results  of  each  trial 
were  listed  during  the  run  (or  immediately  following  in  the 
case  of  hurried,  almost  perfect  runs).  When  the  subject  was 
ready  for  the  first  run,  the  experimenter  lifted  the  hand  on  to 
the  maze  area,  fixing  the  stylus  in  the  required  locality.  The 
following  instructions  were  then  given:  “You  are  now  on  a 
surface  that  has  a  pathway  in  various  directions.  Explore 
the  area,  being  careful  to  keep  the  pointer  in  the  groove  and 


JVHOLE  J’S.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING 


9 


not  allowing  it  to  become  dislodged — so !  Continue  to  explore 
the  area  until  I  tell  you  to  stop.”  No  description  of  this  or  of 
any  maze  was  given.  No  directions  as  to  the  types  of  errors, 
their  avoidances,  or  striving  for  speed  were  given  at  any  time. 
The  subjects  were  chosen  primarily  because  of  their  total  un¬ 
familiarity  with  the  maze  problem.  Only  after  the  runner  had 
explored  the  entire  surface  and  reached  the  open  area,  did  the 
experimenter  say,  “You  are  now  in  a  large,  square  area — so! 
That  is  called  home.  You  must  learn  to  reach  home  in  the  most 
economical  fashion.” 

It  is  obvious  that  the  human  is  forced  under  these  conditions 
to  rely  upon  contact  values  for  the  detection  of  blinds  and  the 
gaining  of  a  sense  of  direction.  Deprived  of  vision,  he  is 
‘sizing’  up  the  novel  situation  as  the  rat  has  been  shown  to  do, 
a  fact  ably  demonstrated  by  Watson,  Small,  Carr  and  others. 
In  the  same  stumbling,  trial  and  error  fashion  he  learns  the 
concrete  meaning  of  blind  alleys,  returning  to  a  closed  entrance 
and  the  final  position  that  means  success.  No  attempt  is  here 
made  .to  state  that  the  mental  processes  involved  in  the  mastery 
of  the  maze  situation  are  identical  for  the  rat  and  the  human. 
It  is  maintained,  however,  that  the  two  have  been  forced  to 
determine  the  nature  of  a  situation  regarding  which  they  were 
equally  in  ignorance  and  to  rely  upon  the  same  sensory  avenues 
foi  data  gathering.  The  satisfying  of  these  conditions  is  a 
prerequisite  for  any  comparative  study. 


CHAPTER  II 


Comparison  of  the  ‘Whole’  and  ‘Part’  ^Methods  With 

Returns  Permitted 

The  introductory  chapter  has  brought  out  the  fact  that  the 
maze  problem  was  the  one  chosen  for  testing  the  ‘whole’  and 
‘part’  procedures.  It  has  been  shown  that  this  choice  makes 
possible  the  establishment  of  identical  conditions  of  learning 
for  the  rat  and  the  human.  The  identity  of  the  maze  problems 
and  the  duplication  of  testing  conditions  for  the  rats  and  humans 
have  been  fully  set  forth.  The  specially  designed  mazes  have 
been  described  at  length  and  their  adaptability  for  testing  the 
‘whole’  and  ‘part’  methods  commented  upon.  The  present  chap¬ 
ter  shows  how  groups  of  rats  and  humans  were  taught  the 
problem  by  these  different  methods.  Each  group  is  treated 
separately  and  its  learning  behavior  and  records  are  displayed 
below. 

(a)  Utilizing  Maze  A,  a  group  of  twelve  rate,  five  males 
and  seven  females  was  used  to  establish  results  for  ‘whole’ 
method  learning.  The  behavior  of  these  rats  in  learning  the 
maze  was  different  in  no  way  from  the  descriptions  generally 
given.  The  results  of  this  regular  method  of  maze  learning 
appear  in  Table  II.  See  page  72. 

(b)  Eor  learning  Maze  A  by  the  ‘part’  method,  a  group  of 
nine  rats,  four  males  and  five  females  was  used.  The  rats 
were  trained  in  Section  I  until  mastery  was  attained.  As  soon 
as  the  individual  rat  had  reached  this  stage,  he  was  transferred 
to  Section  II,  using  of  course  entrance  II  and  exit  II.  It  has 
been  shown  in  Chapter  I  how  the  learning  of  a  section  did  not 
involve  any  of  the  other  sections,  since  each  section  has  an 
independent  entrance  and  exit  to  the  food-box.  Upon  mastery 
of  this  Section,  tuition. in  the  remaining  units  was  successively 
carried  out.  The  behavior  in  learning  the  four  distinct  sections 
presented  no  peculiarities,  except  the  readiness  with  which  the 


WHOLE  VS.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING 


II 


rat  began  the  learning  of  each  new  problem.  The  general 
hesitancy  of  attitude  was  lacking  after  Section  I  had  been 
learned.  As  soon  as  the  mastery  of  the  four  units  was  attained, 
the  separating  panels  were  removed  and  the  rat  started  at 
entrance  I.  The  difference  in  behavior  now  became  marked 
and  was  characteristic  for  the  entire  group.  Starting  off  at 
full  .speed  and  with  almost  uniform  perfection  in  Section  I, 
the  rat  would  come  suddenly  to  a  halt  at  the  closed  door  of 
exit  I.  Sometimes  he  would  dart  back  through  Section  I  to 
the  entrance  and  would  return  full  tilt.  A  hurried  run  into  Sec¬ 
tion  II  produced  the  same  result  at  exit  II.  Hereupon  the  rat’s 
reaction  generally  went  to  pieces.  Occasionally  he  might  run 
perfectly  into  Section  II,  check  his  speed,  stop,  and  then  return 
the  entire  maze  length.  Retracing,  entering  blind  alleys  long 
since  eliminated,  pausing,  cautiously  exploring  the  various  Sec¬ 
tions  were  characteristic  features.  Frequent  complete  returns 
were  made.  Occasionally  a  fresh  start  and  a  rapid  run  would 
suffice  to  carry  the  rat  through  the  entire  course.  But  each  rat 
of  the  group  behaved  uniformly  respecting  the  inability  to  con¬ 
nect  the  serially  learned  units,  the  enormous  time  lost  in  re¬ 
tracing  and  exploring,  and  the  speed  of  motion.  Nor  did  this 
confusion  subside  after  the  first  successful  act  of  connection, 
as  is  shown  from  the  data  tabulated  below.  Table  I  gives  the 
number  of  trials  and  the  time  required  for  each  Section  and 
for  the  connection  of  these,  together  with  the  errors.  Table  II 
gives  these  results  in  comparison  with  the  group  learning  by 
the  Svhole’  method.  (See  page  72.) 

These  numerical  data  show  an  advantage  (10%)  in  the  num¬ 
ber  of  learning  trials  for  the  whole  method,  but  this  is  offset 
by  an  enormous  expenditure  of  time  (118%)  and  errors  made 
(9-5%)^  An  inspection  of  the  types  of  errors  reveals  that  the 

^  The  attention  of  the  reader  is  called  to  the  case  of  a  rat  of  the  ‘part’ 
learning  group,  whose  records  are  excluded  from  the  data  presented. 
This  rat  learned  the  different  units  in  normal  fashion  but  was  unable  to 
connect  these.  For  the  first  trial,  he  ran  perfectly  into  Section  II,  thence 
retraced  until  the  entrance  to  Section  I  was  reached.  Here  he  sat  for 
one  hour,  whereupon  he  was  removed.  For  this  run,  he  scored  no  forward 
going  blind  alleys.  Two  were  made  on  the  return  and  twenty-seven  re 


12 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


high  number  was  due  to  retracing  both  the  true  pathway  and 
the  cul  de  sacs.  These  are  more  numerous  in  each  case  for  the 
‘whole’  method  (139  vs.  108  for  the  retrace  errors  and  24  vs. 
17  for  the  retracing  cul  de  sacs).  Much  of  the  great  time 
expenditure  in  ‘whole’  method  learning  occurs  in  this  retracing 
activity.  Consequently,  it  points  out  one  disadvantage  of  using 
the  ‘whole’  method  for  learning  the  maze.  The  problem  im¬ 
mediately  emerges  whether  such  repetition  and  time  expendi¬ 
ture  due  to  retracing  are  advantageous.  This  is  seriously  called 
into  question,  since  the  only  favorable  score  of  the  ‘whole’ 
method  is  in  the  scant  saving  of  10%  of  trials.  The  utility 
of  the  returning  effort  will  be  investigated  in  Chapter  III. 

(c)  With  the  human  experimentation  in  ‘whole’  method  learn¬ 
ing,  the  behavior  was  identical  with  the  general  type  as  de¬ 
scribed  by  Perrin.  It  agreed  also  with  that  of  the  rats.  The 
early  trials  accumulated  errors  of  all  types.  Much  time  was 
expended  in  apparently  useless  movements  into  blinds  and  re¬ 
peated  returning  to  the  entrance.  Often  the  subject  would  pause 
as  if  for  reflection  and  then  attack  the  problem  with  renewed 
zeal.  See  Table  IV  (page  72)  for  the  results  of  this  test. 

(d)  In  the  ‘part’  learning,  the  subject  was  never  told  when  he 
was  set  to  work  upon  a  new  section,  yet  he  seemed  to  detect 
the  change  very  quickly.  As  in  the  case  of  the  rat,  the  human 
worked  hard  -to  master  each  new  problem.  When  the  four 
units  were  learned,  the  act  of  connection  gave  the  same  difficulty 
as  was  shown  by  the  rats.  Some  subjects  seemed  to  have  a 
strong  determination  to  go  ahead  but  their  control  over  the 
situation  invariably  failed.-  The  quickest  subject  to  connect 

traces.  On  the  next  day  he  started  out  rapidly,  ran  without  error  into 
Section  II,  returned  without  error  to  the  entrance,  where  he  sat  until 
removed  one  hour  later.  He  was  not  run  again.  He  was  the  single  rat 
of  the  entire  group  unable  to  connect  the  units. 

2  It  is  clear  that  the  human  subject  knew  no  more  of  the  nature  of  his 
task  than  the  rat.  He  had  not  been  informed  that  he  was  to  connect 
four  sections  that  had  been  learned  as  units.  It  was  part  of  his  problem 
to  discover  this,  just  as  it  was  with  the  rat.  The  writer  cannot  say  whether 
such  previous  information  would  have  modified  his  learning  results.  Such 
previous  instruction  would  certainly  have  rendered  comparison  with  the 
rat  records  impossible. 


WHOLE  VS.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING 


13 


the  units  required  six  trials,  while  the  slowest  required  forty- 
seven.  The  records  of  this  experiment  are  listed  in  Table  III, 
and  compared  in  Table  IV  with  the  ‘whole’  method  records. 

This  comparison  of  human  records  shows  an  enormous  ad¬ 
vantage  of  the  ‘whole’  method  and  this  advantage  applies  to  all 
the  measuring  criteria.  There  is  a  superiority  of  47%  for  both 
total  ' errors  and  time  and  48%  saving  for  number  of  trials. 
Likewise,  this  advantage  is  equitably  distributed  for  all  types 
of  errors,  since  there  is  a  substantial  saving  for  each  type  when 
learning  is  by  the  ‘whole’  method. 

Comparing  the  records  of  the  rats  and  humans  (Table  V,  p. 
73),  we  find  agreement  in  that  the  ‘whole’  method  brings  final 
success  with  fewer  trials,  though  with  greater  percentage  of  gain 
for  the  humans.  It  is  seen  that  the  rats  learn  their  problem 
with  a  saving  of  time  and  errors  by  the  ‘part’  method,  as  op- 
ix)sed  to  the  humans  succeeding  best  by  the  ‘whole’.  Yet  the 
‘whole’  method  is  also  more  efficient  for  the  rats,  if  the  for¬ 
ward  going  cul  de  sacs  (Type  A  errors)  are  made  the  criterion 
of  measurement.  If  the  retracings  were  eliminated  from  the 
records,  the  ‘whole’  method  would  prove  superior  in  all  re¬ 
spects,  both  for  rats  and  humans.  (This  shows  again  the  neces¬ 
sity  of  testing  the  influence  of  the  returning,  especially  with 
the  rats).  In  absolute  terms,  the  humans  learn  the  problem 
with  fewer  trials  and  less  time  than  the  rats,  both  for  ‘whole’ 
and  ‘part’  learning  methods.  They  accumulate  more  errors  than 
the  rats  when  the  ‘part’  method  is  employed,  fewer  errors  with 
the  ‘whole’  method.  This  high  error  accumulation  in  ‘part’ 
learning  is  assignable  mainly  to  the  connecting  of  the  parts. 
Rats  and  humans  agree  in  finding  this  connecting  process  very 
difficult,  but  the  humans  here  require  more  trials  and  accumu¬ 
late  more  errors  of  all  types,  especiallv  of  the  retracing  variety 
(Type  C). 

The  results  of  this  ‘whole’  and  ‘part’  testing  may  be  sum¬ 
marized  as  follows : 

( I )  Rats.  Mastery  is  attained  with  a  slightly  less  number 
of  trials  when  learning  is  by  the  ‘whole’  method.  Such  learn¬ 
ing  accumulates  more  errors  and  requires  a  much  greater  time 


14 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


expenditure.  The  errors  in  excess  are  not  cul  de  sacs  entered 
while  going  forward  (Type  A)  but  those  due  to  retracing 
(Type  C)  and  the  cul  de  sacs  made  possible  by  this  (Type  B). 

(2)  Humans.  Mastery  is  attained  with  fewer  trials,  less 
time  expenditure  and  fewer  errors  of  all  types  when  learning 
is  by  the  ‘whole’  method. 

It  is  apparent  that  additional  testing  is  required  to  determine 
the  influence  of  the  returning  tendency.  This  alone  prevented 
the  ‘whole’  method  from  proving  more  efficient  in  all  cases. 
If  the  returns  are  not  counted  in  the  records,  it  has  been  shown 
that  the  ‘whole’  method  would  be  better  for  the  rats  in  all 
respects,  as  it  had  proved  with  the  humans.  But  it  is  not  justifi¬ 
able  to  .exclude  these  returns  arbitrarily.  Rather,  a  test  situa¬ 
tion  must  be  prepared  where  no  more  returning  is  allowed 
in  ‘whole’  method  procedure  than  in  ‘part’  learning.  This  is 
the  problem  of  Chapter  III. 


CHAPTER  III 


Influence  of  the  Prevention  of  Returns 

The  experimentation  reported  in  Chapter  II  made  clear  that 
the  ‘whole’  method  invariably  proves  superior  with  the  humans 
and  likewise  with  the  rats,  except  when  comparison  is  with 
reference  to  the  great  number  of  retrace  errors  accumulated 
by  the  latter.  It  was  shown  that  the  rats  probably  have  a 
greater  tendency  to  return  than  the  humans,  and  that  this 
tendency  is  no  doubt  exaggerated  in  the  ‘whole’  method  pro¬ 
cedure.  Logically,  it  is  a  question  whether  these  returns  are 
causal  parts  of  the  learning  process  or  merely  incidental  by¬ 
products.  If  they  are  assisting  in  the  mastery  of  the  problem, 
they  must  be  counted,  both  for  rats  and  humans  and  in  both 
learning  methods.  It  might  appear,  consequently,  that  their 
relative  advantage  would  be  different  not  only  for  the  different 
methods  but  also  for  the  rats  and  humans.  It  was  pointed  out 
that  the  rats  accumulated  a  high  proportion  of  these  errors 
in  ‘whole’  method  learning  but  that  the  humans  did  not.  On 
the  other  hand,  if  these  errors  are  shown  to  be  relatively  use¬ 
less,  they  should  not  be  counted  in  any  case  for  either  animals 
or  humans.  The  problem  of  this  chapter  is  to  test  the  influence 
of  these  returns. 

The  ecjuipment  of  Maze  A  with  sliding  panels  for  the  pre¬ 
vention  of  returns  has  been  described  in  the  introduction.  It 
is,  of  course,  obvious  that  all  returning  is  not  prevented.  It  is 
not  feasible  to  prevent  all  retracing.  For  our  comparative  pur¬ 
poses,  it  is  necessary  to  restrict  the  returns  in  ‘whole’  procedure 
to  the  same  number  possible  in  ‘part’  method  learning.  This 
demands  preventing  the  return  into  a  definite  unit  section  as 
soon  as  this  section  has  been  traversed.  This  effectively  divides 
the  whole  maze  into  the  four  units  established  for  ‘part’  learn¬ 
ing.  It  renders  the  amount  of  returning  in  the  ‘whole’  method 
plan  practically  the  same  as  naturally  occurs  in  the  ‘part’  method. 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


i6 

It  makes  possible  a  comparison  of  the  two  methods  with  the 
same  degree  of  returning.  This  is  exactly  the  condition  desired. 

A  group  of  nine  rats,  four  males  and  five  females,  was  used 
in  this  test.  As  soon  as  the  rat  had  reached  the  closed  exit 
to  Section  I,  the  return  panel  was  noiselessly  pulled.  By  quietly 
stepping  to  the  opposite  side  of  the  maze  the  operator  was 
enabled  to  close  the  blocks  to  Sections  II  and  III  without  dis¬ 
tracting  the  animal  from  his  task  of  exploration.  Often  the 
animals  would  return  to  the  closed  passageway,  but  the  find¬ 
ing  of  this  blocked  never  resulted  in  fright  or  the  cessation 
of  the  exploring  activity.  At  no  time  did  this  group  manifest 
the  confusion  and  random  expenditure  of  energy  so  typical 
of  the  previously  described  groups.  The  results  of  this  ex¬ 
periment  are  arranged  for  comparative  purposes  in  Table  VI. 

The  returns  in  the  human  experimentation  were  prevented 
by  inserting  the  tip  of  a  long  handled  rubber  block.  This  was 
constructed  to  fit  the  pathway  completely.  It  was  so  held  by 
the  experimenter  as  to  prevent  any  motion  if  the  subject  re¬ 
explored  the  area.  Because  of  the  general  maze,  direction  it 
was  possible  to  block  the  returns  without  getting  in  the  way 
of  the  subject.  For  the  first  few  trials  the  subject  was  con¬ 
fused  at  his  inability  to  return.  All  knowledge  that  his  path¬ 
way  had  been  blocked  seemed  lacking  and  he  assigned  his 
inability  to  his  own  carelessness  (see  Table  VI,  page  73). 

Inspecting,  the  data  of  Table  VI,  its  remarkable  uniformity 
of  results  is  manifest.  For  both  animal  and  human  learning, 
prevention  of  returns  increases  the  number  of  trials  required 
for  complete  mastery,  but  at  an  enormous  saving  of  time  and 
errors.  So  far  as  regards  time  and  errors,  the  greater  amount 
of  saving  is  for  the  rats  (151%  vs.  18%  for  time,  95%  vs. 
56%  for  errors).  With  trials,  there  is  10%  vs.  29%  increase 
in  number  for  the  humans.  Considering  the  high  savings  in 
time  and  errors  and  the  relatively  small  loss  in  number  of  trials, 
efficiency  as  between  these  types  of  ‘whole’  methods  rests  over¬ 
whelmingly  with  the  prevention  of  returns. 

The  study  of  the  influence  of  the  returns  as  a  factor  in 
learning  was  continued  with  Maze  B.  This  experiment  in- 


WHOLE  VS.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING 


17 


volves  the  double  section  alley  as  contrasted  with  the  single 
section  alley  of  Maze  A.  Fourteen  rats  were  used  for  the 
unobstructed  learning,  thirteen  for  learning  with  returns  blocked. 
The  entire  groups  were  given  fifty  runs  upon  the  maze,  and 
the  records  of  all  the  rats  for  the  entire  period  are  combined. 
These  are  summarized  in  Table  VII,  p.  73.  They  show  for  the 
groups  a  large  amount  of  saving,  both  for  time  and  errors. 

By  the  end  of  the  tuition  period,  64%  of  the  unrestricted 
group  had  mastered  the  maze  but  only  54%  of  the  group  where 
returns  were  prevented.  The  records  of  these  somewhat 
cjuicker  learners  are  abstracted  and  appear  in  Table  VIII.  They 
show  the  same  time  and  error  saving  as  do  the  entire  group 
records.  While  a  larger  percentage  of  the  unrestricted  had  mas¬ 
tered  the  maze  within  the  alloted  period,  the  average  number 
of  trials  required  is  slightly  higher.  This  latter  fact  is  at 
variance  with  the  parallel  results  in  Maze  A.  There  is  no 
reason  to  assign  this  to  the  difference  in  type  of  alleys  of 
the  two  mazes,  or  to  attempt  any  explanation,  since  the  re¬ 
sults  are  for  a  picked  group.  If,  however,  the  results  for  the 
humans  upon  the  same  double  section  maze  (where  learning 
was  continued  until  mastery  was  attained),  should  contradict 
the  conclusions  drawn  from  the  work  on  Maze  A,  the  ques¬ 
tion  of  double  section  alleys  might  be  raised.  Otherwise,  it 
might  be  concluded  that  the  full  completion  of  the  training 
would  produce  the  results  in  increased  number  of  trials  for 
obstructed  learning  as  previously  stated  for  Maze  A. 

Turning  to  the  human  learning  of  Maze  B,  here  again  it  is 
found  that  the  entire  group  masters  the  problem  with  less  runs 
when  freedom  is  allowed  but  that  more  errors  are  amassed 
(Table  VIII,  p.  73).  The  restricted  group  fails  slightly  to  main¬ 
tain  the  time  advantages  generally  secured  (2.7%  decrease), 
but  this  and  the  extraordinarily  high  number  of  trials  are  trace¬ 
able  no  doubt  to  two  students  of  the  restricted  group,  who 
required  79  and  87  runs  respectively  for  mastery.^ 

^  The  daily  records  of  these  two  fail  to  show  a  continuous  fixation  of 
specific  errors  but  rather  a  general  inability  to  secure  a  uniform  record  from 
day  to  day.  The  extreme  length  of  their  learning  series  increased  a  native 
tendency  to  nervousness. 


i8  LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 

From  the  data  of  human  and  rat  learning,  both  for  Mazes 
A  and  B  and  not  only  for  complete  mastery  but  also  for  a 
limited  number  of  trials,  it  seems  correct  to  conclude  that  pre¬ 
vention  of  returns  increases  slightly  the  number  of  trials  re¬ 
quired  for  mastery  but  this  is  accomplished  by  an  enormous 
saving  in  time  and  accumulated  errors. 

It  cannot  now  be  said  that  the  retracing  plays  no  part  in 
the  final  mastery  of  the  maze  situation.  Such  an  answer  will 
depend  finally  upon  maze  records  where  returns  are  absolutely 
blocked.  The  writer  is  planning  the  details  of  such  an  experi¬ 
ment.  He  now  has  in  preparation  a  detailed  analysis  of  the 
learning  of  the  maze  with  and  without  prevention  of  returns. 
Here  there  will  be  an  attempt  made  to  determine  the  exact 
value  of  the  retrace  error  and  the  retrace  cul  de  sac  as  factors 
in  mastery.  It  appears  almost  conclusive  from  present  data 
that  the  retracing  and  entering  into  blind  alleys,  made  pos¬ 
sible  by  this  retracing  are  practically  useless  items.  Graphs 
for  the  rats  learning  Maze  A  show  that  retracing  is  a  negligible 
factor  long  before  the  first  half  of  the  number  of  required 
trials  has  been  made;  that  the  return  cul  de  sacs  cease  to  play 
any  part  after  the  first  two-fifths  of  the  trials  in  the  case  of 
unobstructed  learning  and  after  the  first  fifth  for  obstructed; 
that  the  forward  directed  errors  are  almost  identical  in  num¬ 
ber  and  in  distribution  throughout  the  entire  learning  period 
and  that  they  and  they  almost  solely  determine  the  learning 
curve  for  the  last  half  of  the  tuition  period.  (See  graphs  I  to 
IV).  This  seems  to  indicate  that  the  beginning  trials  are 
very  wasteful  when  waste  is  permitted;  that  the  maze  is  never 
mastered  until  the  rat  finally  settles  down  to  the  difficult  task 
of  forward  elimination  of  errors;  that  the  early  trials  do 
not  measure  learning  but  primarily  the  extravagant  and  use¬ 
less  expenditure  of  energy.  This  would  argue  that  the  re¬ 
tracing  is  mainly  of  no  efficiency  in  learning  and  hence  should 
be  disregarded.  If  the  retracings  are  eliminated  from  the 
records  discussed  in  Chapter  H,  it  is  certain  that  the  ‘whole’ 
method  ranks  superior  in  every  possible  respect.  It  was  in¬ 
sisted  upon  in  the  earlier  discussion  that  the  retracings  are 


WHOLE  VS.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING 


19 


the  only  factors  contributing  to  the  high  error  scores  of  the 
‘whole’  method  procedure,  and  that  such  a  condition  maintained 
only  with  the  rats.  This  view  is  certainly  strengthened  by  the 
findings  of  the  present  chapter.  The  obvious  implications  of 
this  are  two.  (i)  It  seems  fair  to  cj[uestion  whether  the  cus¬ 
tomary  practice  of  including  the  retracing  in  the  measurement 
of  maze  learning  is  justified.  (2)  Considerable  light  is  shed 
upon  the  advantage  of  the  complete  forward  direction  of  effort 
throughout  the  entire  learning  period. 

Furthermore,  this  evidence  leads  the  writer  to  question  the 
reliability  of  viewpoint  basic  to  the  recent  controversial  litera¬ 
ture  regarding  the  order  of  the  elimination  of  errors  in  maze 
learning.  It  seems  important  that  the  investigators  should  take 
into  account  the  big  question  regarding  the  influence  of  the 
prevention  of  the  returns  before  any  conclusions  are  drawn 
in  reference  to  a  general  eliminative  tendency.  Again,  if  true 
learning  is  not  to  be  measured  by  total  errors  (as  suggested 
above),  should  the  measuring  of  the  alleged  eliminative  ten¬ 
dency  be  begun  until  the  stage  of  aggressive,  forward  directed 
learning  is  reached?  This  monograph  waives  any  discussion 
of  the  order  of  error  elimination,  but  the  topic  will  be  discussed 
at  a  later  period. 

Having  tested  out  the  influences  of  the  partial  prevention  of 
returns  and  found  that  such  procedure  produces  an  enormous 
saving  in  time  and  errors,  it  is  in  order  to  compare  these  re¬ 
sults  with  the  statistics  of  ‘part’  learning  as  presented  in 
Chapter  II.  See  Table  IX,  p.  74,  for  the  data.  For  both  rats  and 
humans,  the  ‘whole’  method  is  strikingly  superior.  Any  ques¬ 
tion  of  approximate  value  for  the  two  methods  would  rest  upon 
the  like  number  of  trials  for  the  rat  learning  (30  trials  for 
both  ‘whole’  and  ‘part’).  But  the  evaluation  of  the  two  methods 
as  equally  efficient  is  totally  unwarranted  in  the  face  of  the 
overwhelming  decrease  of  time  (13%)  and  errors  (44%). 
With  the  humans,  this  decrease  is  26,  126  and  193%  respectively 
for  number  of  trials,  time  and  errors.  It  is  certain,  then,  that 
for  both  rats  and  humans  the  ‘whole’  method  in  motor  learn¬ 
ing  is  to  be  preferred  to  the  ‘part’  method,  provided  unlimited 


20 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


returning  is  prevented,  or  if  not  prevented,  that  the  return 
errors  are  excluded  from  the  data  being  compared. 

The  results  of  testing  the  prevention  of  the  returns  in 
‘whole’  method  procedure  may  be  summarized  as  follows : 

(1)  The  number  of  trials  for  mastery  is  slightly  increased, 
both  for  rats  and  humans. 

(2)  There  is  a  very  marked  saving  in  time  for  mastery  and 
the  number  of  errors  is  greatly  reduced. 

(3)  The  saving  in  time  and  the  avoidance  of  errors  are 
assignable  directly  to  the  prevention  of  the  retracing. 

(4)  The  forward  going  cul  de  sac  errors  (Type  A)  are 
almost  constant  in  number  with  each  method  for  the  same 
divisions  of  the  learning  period. 

(5)  The  retracing  is  largely  useless  and  should  probably 
be  disregarded. 

(6)  The  rat’s  tendency  to  retrace  is  stronger  than  the 
human’s,  but  the  prevention  of  returns  affects  the  learning  of 
both  in  identical  fashion. 

(7)  ‘Whole’  method  learning  is  more  efficient  than  ‘part’ 
learning  for  both  rats  and  humans,  provided  no  more  retracing 
is  allowed  than  is  possible  in  ‘part”  procedure. 


CHAPTER  IV 


Elements  of  Waste  in  Tart’  Learning 

The  preceding  chapter,  has  shown  that  the  ‘whole’  method 
of  motor  learning  proves  superior  in  all  cases,  provided  no 
more  retracing  is  allowed  than  is  present  in  ‘part’  learning. 
It  is  conclusive  that  the  ‘part’  method  fails  to  secure  success 
with  fewer  trials,  less  time  consumption,  and  the  accumulation 
of  fewer  errors.  Naturally,  it  is  necessary  to  determine  the 
exact  factors  that  create  such  a  condition.  Specifically,  this 
means  to  seek  out  experimentally  the  elements  of  weakness  in 
the  ‘part’  method.  Investigators  of  the  methods  in  the  rote 
and  logical  fields  came  to  agreement  regarding  the  causes  con¬ 
tributing  toward  making  the  ‘whole’  method  universally  su¬ 
perior.  These  proposed  explanations  have  been  stated  in  the 
opening  chapter  (see  p.  2).  Two  comments  need  to  be 
made.  These  proposed  causative  factors  have  never  been  tested 
in  motor  learning,  nor  have  they  ever  been  subjected  to  meas¬ 
urement  under  carefully  controlled  laboratory  conditions.  The 
aim  of  this  chapter  is  to  test  various  a  priori  hypotheses  and 
hereby  secure  a  statistical  evaluation  of  their  validity.  Several, 
of  those  proposed  for  rote  and  logical  learning  are  handled. 
However,  several  distinctly  new  conditioning  factors  are  tested, 
not  only  because  of  their  immediate  connection  with  the  maze 
act  but  also  because  of  their  logical  reference  to  learning  in 
general. 

(a)  Loss  due  to  negative  transfer  in  the  learning  of  the 
motor  units. 

Until  determined  to  the  contrary,  it  may  be  argued  that  learn¬ 
ing  one  section  (one  motor  unit)  exerts  an  unfavorable  in¬ 
fluence  upon  the  mastery  of  succeeding  units.  While  transfer 
in  motor  learning  has  often  been  investigated,  there  are  no 
results  that  show  conclusively  whether  such  transfer — either 
positive  or  negative — continues  unchecked  in  operation  for  sev- 


22 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


eral  successive  problems.  This  influence  may  be  so  great  as 
to  cause  an  enormous  expenditure  of  learning  effort  upon  the 
subsequent  maze  sections.  This  harmful  negative  transfer  may 
be  the  chief  factor  contributing  to  the  accumulation  of  the 
numerous  errors  in  'part’  learning.  Reference  to  Tables  I  and 
III  shows  that  this  situation  cannot  be  ignored. 

Control  groups,  numbering  six  for  both  rats  and  humans, 
were  taught  as  a  single  problem  either  Part  II,  III  or  IV  of 
Maze  A.  These  records  denote  the  normal  time  required  for 
the  mastery  of  each  unit  when  the  learner  is  free  from  the 
influence  of  a  previous  learning  act.  A  comparison  of  these 
with  the  records  of  the  groups  learning  all  the  four  units  (the 
'part’  learners  discussed  in  Chapter  II)  reveals  that  successive 
learning  is  rendered  far  easier  by  previous  related  activity  (See 
Tables  X,  XI,  p.  74).  This  positive  transfer  can  be  roughly  esti¬ 
mated  by  bringing  together  our  measurements  of  learning  in 


the  formula  T  = 


{t — t’)  (s — s’)  (e — e’), 

t.s.e. 


where  t,  s,  and  e  rep¬ 


resent  the  number  of  trials,  time  in  seconds  and  errors  respect¬ 
ively  for  the  case  of  original  learning  and  t’,  s’,  and  e’  for  the 
parallelled  transfer  conditions.  The  formula  thus  stated  re¬ 
lates  the  amount  of  saving  to  the  original  learning  conditions. 
Employing  it,  there  is  found  positive  transfer  of  43,  47  and 
9%  respectively  for  Sects.  II,  III,  and  IV  in  the  rat  situation, 
and  2.3,  46  and  70%  for  the  human. ^  Instead  of  finding  an 
element  of  waste  in  'part’  learning,  there  has  been  revealed  one 
of  its  fundamental  advantages.  Therefore,  transfer  as  an  ele¬ 
ment  of  waste  in  'part’  learning  of  this  maze  type  must  be 


1  The  percentage  of  transfer  increases  with  the  human  throughout  the 
learning  of  the  four  mazes.  The  rat  percentage  for  the  fourth  problem 
is  relatively  a  marked  decline.  This  is  due  to  a  single  rat  of  the  ‘part’- 
learning  group  requiring  47  runs  to  eliminate  a  single  error.  This  raised 
the  group  average  so  high  as  to  allow  only  a  factor  of  run  to  function 
for  the  number  of  trial  gain  in  the  formulaic  estimation.  It  is  an  interesting 
problem  to  determine  whether  transfer  should  be  increasingly  favorable 
in  successive  mazes  numbering  more  than  four  and  to  what  limits.  The 
writer  believes  it  obtains  certainly  for  four  simple  mazes  and  probably 
beyond  the  number.  Many  factors  naturally  enter  in. 


WHOLE  VS.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING 


23 


rejected,  for  transfer  is  strongly  positive  and  advantageous. 

(b)  Loss  due  to  disintegration  through  time. 

Considering  that  the  learning  effort  was  distributed  from 
day  to  day  and  that  the  mastery  of  the  individual  units  in¬ 
volved  relatively  long  periods  of  time,  it  appears  logical  to 
assign  a  good  part  of  the  great  loss  in  ‘part’  learning  to  a  mere 
forgetting  of  the  earlier  learned  pathways.  By  averaging  the 
number  of  days  elapsing  between  the  learning  of  Sections  I, 
II,  and  III,  and  the  return  to  these  in  the  final  act  of  connec¬ 
tion,  there  is  found  a  very  appreciable  time  interval.  This  is 
fifteen,  eleven,  and  four  days  for  section  I,  II,  and  III  re¬ 
spectively  with  the  rats  and  thirteen,  eight,  and  five  respectively 
for  the  humans. 

Different  groups  of  untrained  rats  were  taught  a  single  unit 
and  then  allowed  to  rest  for  the  required  time  interval.  During 
this  interval,  the  rats  were  placed  daily  upon  the  maze  top 
and  allowed  to  run  for  one  minute  before  food  was  placed  in 
the  food-box.  This  furnished  approximately  the  same  amount 
of  daily  activity  upon  the  maze  and  gave  the  rat  the  exercise 
demanded  to  preserve  good  bodily  conditions.  Cramped  cage 
conditions  necessitate  this.  At  the  end  of  the  interval,  the  rats 
were  retrained  upon  their  respective  sections.  This  was  con¬ 
tinued  until  the  mastery  criterion  of  four  successful  runs  was 
satisfied.  Hence,  the  disintegration  through  time  is  measured 
by  the  relearning  expenditure.  Human  groups  were  excused 
from  reporting  to  the  laboratory  for  the  appropriate  interval. 
Their  loss  due  to  time  is  likewise  measured  by  the  relearning 
method.  Tables  XV,  XVI,  pp.  75-6,  present  these  data.  The  dis¬ 
integration  is  notably  small.  In  fact,  nearly  all  the  group  mem¬ 
bers  were  perfect  in  retention  and  the  relearning  effort  was 
mainly  expended  by  a  single  rat  and  some  human  subjects  that 
had  originally  learned  their  problem  very  hurriedly.^  It  is 
certain,  therefore,  that  disintegration  through  time  must  be 
disregarded  as  a  waste  element  in  motor  ‘part’  learning.^ 

2  This  was  especially  true  with  Rat  Number  4  of  the  Section  II  group. 
His  original  learning  required  but  one  trial,  with  two  errors,  and  487  sec¬ 
onds.  His  relearning  required  seven  trials,  eleven  errors,  and  forty  seconds. 
This  suggests  not  only  the  question  of  relationship  between  speed  of 


24 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


(c)  Loss  due  to  retro-active  inhibition. 

It  has  been  shown  above  that  learning  one  motor  unit  is 
favorable  for  mastering  subsequent  ones  and  that  a  unit  will 
not  disintegrate  during  a  limited  time  interval,  provided  only 
one  such  unit  has  been  learned.  But  are  the  conditions  re¬ 
versed  when  the  rat  is  taught  several  such  units?  Specifically, 
do  the  learning  efforts  expended  in  mastering  Sections  II,  III, 
&  IV,  impair  the  ability  of  running  I,  II,  III,  and  even  the  last 
mastered,  IV?  The  influence  of  the  interval  of  time  under  such 
conditions  may  logically  be  disregarded  (see  section  above) 
but  it  is  mandatory  that  the  control  over  each  sectional  path¬ 
way  be  carefully  tested.  If  this  control  has  been  broken  up  by 
subsequent  learning  activity,  it  is  obvious  that  herein  rests 
the  explanation  for  much  of  the  inability  to  connect  the  units 
in  the  final  motor  series. 

An  entirely  new  control  group  of  rats  was  trained  upon  the 

learning  and  accuracy  in  retention  but  also  whether  the  maze  has  ever 
been  learned  until  the  rat  has  taken  time  to  work  it  out  thoroughly, — 
either  in  the  original  learning  or  relearning  process.  There  is  fundamental 
difference  between  knowing  how  to  steer  by  the  unexplored  areas  (cul  de 
sacs  never  entered)  and  knowing  the  character,  depth,  and  position  of 
these.  The  writer  has  never  had  a  rat  that  did  not  work  out  the  maze 
completely,  either  in  the  original  or  relearning  situation.  Considerable 
data  relative  to  the  learning  time  and  retention  accuracy  will  be  published 
at  a  later  period. 

^  This  paper  has  waived  detailed  discussion  of  the  question  of  retention, 
though  the  writer  heartily  agrees  that  one  measure  of  the  efficiency  of  a 
learning  method  is  the  strength  of  retention  (as  Meumann  had  show'n 
in  the  case  of  rote  learning).  Group  records  have  been  accumulated 
for  ‘whole’  method  learners,  with  and  without  the  prevention  of 
returns,  and  for  eight,  seven,  and  five  weeks.  No  big  differences  seem 
to  appear  for  the  same  time  intervals.  The  accuracy  is  very  high,  the 
loss  being  in  the  time  of  the  first  several  runs  in  retesting.  This  is  not 
due  to  exploration  of  cul  de  sacs  or  retracing  but  to  slow  and  cautious 
rate  of  forward  progress.  Records  for  ‘whole’  and  ‘part’  learners,  where 
there  was  progressive  retesting  for  i,  2,  3,  and  4  week  intervals  between  the 
retesting  (not  the  original  learning)  seem  again  to  reveal  strong  reten¬ 
tion,  but  with  a  probable  time  value  in  favor  of  the  ‘whole’  learners. 
This  is  to  be  expected,  since  the  final  four  perfect  runs  of  ‘part’  learners 
in  the  original  learning  act  are  invariably  slower  than  for  the  ‘whole’ 
learners.  However,  the  writer  regards  the  retention  question  in  its  rela¬ 
tion  to  original  learning  methods  as  being  practically  unattacked  in  this 
motor  realm. 


WHOLE  VS.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING 


25 


four  motor  units,  following  the  exact  procedure  laid  down  for 
the  ‘part’  group.  As  soon  as  the  individual  rat  had  mastered 
the  final  unit,  Section  IV,  he  was  retrained  upon  Section  I. 
Such  retraining  was  kept  up  until  the  mastery  criterion  of  four 
successful  runs  was  satisfied.  By  this  relearning  method,  there¬ 
fore,  the  experimenter  was  enabled  to  measure  the  retro-active 
inhibition  exerted  upon  Section  I.  Note  that  entirely  differ¬ 
ent  and  completely  trained  control  groups  would  be  required 
for  measuring  this  inhibition  on  Section  II  and  Section  III, 
provided  the  single  group  failed  to  demonstrate  its  ability  to 
run  not  only  Section  I,  but  Sections  II  and  III  in  turn.  Table 
XII,  page  75,  embodies  the  data.  Inspection  reveals  practically 
absolute  control  of  the  successive  units. ^  Hence,  only  one  group 
was  employed  for  the  testing  of  all  the  sections.  When  the 
entire  group  rec[uired  for  the  complete  relearning  of  the  four 
sections  but  an  average  of  .6  trials,  3.9  seconds,  and  .65  errors 
per  section  (with  all  the  relearning  effort  being  directed  to  one 
section  and  herein  expended  mainly  by  a  single  blind  rat),  it 
is  obvious  that  retro-active  inhibition  must  be  disregarded  as  an 
element  of  the  great  waste  in  learning  the  maze  by  the  ‘part’ 
method. 

(d)  Loss  due  to  contiguity  of  unit  functioning. 

It  has  been  shown  that  learning  a  section  does  not  interfere 
with  the  accjuisition  of  a  section  on  subsequent  days  (Transfer). 
Also,  it  is  clear  that  the  mastery  of  a  new  section  does  not 
interfere  with  the  running  of  previously  learned  sections,  pro¬ 
vided  that  at  least  a  day  interval  is  allowed  between  tests. 
{Retro-active  inJiibition) .  Finally,  all  the  motor  units  learned 
may  function  perfectly,  provided  a  day  or  more  elapses  be¬ 
tween  the  trial  acts.  {Retro-active  inhibition).  But  it  is  pos- 

^  Attention  is  called  to  the  fact  that  Section  III  alone  presented  difficulty. 
This  difficulty  is  almost  negligible,  since  2.2  errors  for  a  group  is  of 
course  practically  to  be  disregarded.  It  will  furnish  cold  comfort  to  some 
of  the  present  day  animal  psychologists  to  be  told  that  the  errors  of 
Section  III  were  made  by  two  rats,  the  first,  completely  blind,  whose  re¬ 
learning  effort  required  seven  trials,  nine  errors  and  fifty-three  seconds, 
the  other,  three  trials,  two  errors  and  fourteen  seconds.  These  two  rats 
alone  determine  the  scores  for  Section  III.  If  the  blind  rat  were  ex¬ 
cluded,  the  averages  for  the  group  would  approach  zero. 


26 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


sible  that  two  acts  might  function  successfully  without  any 
interference  between  them  when  there  is  interposed  this  con¬ 
siderable  time  interval,  and  yet  that  marked  interference  might 
occur  if  these  different  motor  habits  were  forced  to  function  im¬ 
mediately  in  succession,  a  condition  that  maintains  in  the  con¬ 
necting  act  of  'part’  procedure.  The  difficulty  so  clearly  demon¬ 
strated  in  the  connecting  act  in  'part’  learning  may  consist 
primarily  in  an  interference  resulting  from  this  contiguity  of 
function.  The  validity  of  this  hypothesis  had  to  be  tested,  not 
only  in  the  case  of  motor  acts  learned  in  immediate  succession, 
but  for  all  possible  combinations  of  the  total  collection  of  acts 
at  the  disposal  of  the  subject. 

A  new  group  of  rats  (six  in  number),  was  taught  the  four 
maze  sections.  Retesting  was  made  upon  various  sections  as 
soon  as  Section  IV  was  mastered.  Here,  differing  from  the 
group  reported  in  the  retro-active  inhibition  test,  each  rat  was 
given  but  one  run  per  section  and  then  changed  immediately 
to  one  not  successively  learned.  This  requires  two  distinct 
adjustments.  All  typical  combinations  were  tested.  These,  for 
successive  days,  were  I  &  III,  II  &  IV,  IV  &  I,  III  &  I, 
IV  &  II.  These  tests  of  five  days  produce  almost  perfect  re¬ 
sults.  In  no  case  did  the  group  average  higher  than  2/5  errors 
for  the  day.  Most  individuals  of  the  group  were  able  to  adjust 
immediately  to  any  such  combinations  and  to  accommodate  to 
these  changing  requirements  day  after  day.  Finally,  the  daily 
task  was  increased  by  compelling  double  the  general  amount  of 
work  and  this  in  the  inverted  order  of  learning,  namely,  suc¬ 
cessive  runs  in  IV,  III,  II  and  I.  This  increasing  demand  in 
amount  of  work  and  complexity  failed  absolutely  to  create  a 
breakdown  in  control.  Three  of  the  rats  ran  the  entire  four 
sections  perfectly,  each  of  the  remaining  three  attained  a  single 
error  for  the  entire  four  problems.  The  scantiness  of  errors 
renders  untenable  any  opinion  that  the  ‘part’  learner  does  not 
have  control  over  the  specific  units  he  has  mastered.  This 
control  exists  irrespective  of  the  order  in  which  the  units  are 
required  to  function  or  of  their  functional  contiguity. 

(e)  Loss  due  to  unit  incompatibility  in  a  larger  series. 


WHOLE  VS.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING 


27 


It  is  logically  possible  that  the  various  units  present  in¬ 
hibitory  tendencies  one  to  the  other  in  the  act  of  connection 
and  that  these  units  have  to  be  destroyed  before  the  final  act 
of  union  can  be  made.  In  other  words,  it  needs  to  be  shown 
whether  any  motor  unit  can  function  as  a  specific  part  in  a 
bigger  motor  situation.  Section  (d)  above  merely  showed  that 
the  units  can  function  in  temporal  contiguity.  It  argued  noth¬ 
ing  regarding  whether  a  definite  part  of  a  total  act  can  function 
independent  of  that  act.  Obviously,  if  a  group  having  mastery 
of  the  entire  motor  situation  can  run  all  parts  of  that  situation 
as  parts  and  various  combinations  of  these  parts,  the  ques¬ 
tions  of  incompatibility  of  units  and  their  inability  to  function 
as  parts  of  a  whole  must  be  answered  negatively. 

The  rat  and  human  groups  having  been  taught  Maze  A  in 
the  most  advantageous  fashion  (hvhole’  method  with  returns 
prevented)  were  tested  upon  the  various  parts.  (These  so- 
called  parts  are  the  four  units  mastered  in  'part’  learning).  By 
the  removal  and  insertion  of  panels  in  the  rat  mazes  and  metal 
plugs  for  the  humans,  new  connections  were  easily  made 
possible,  yet  the  character  of  the  parts  was  unchanged.  It  was 
considered  essential  to  try  the  rearranged  parts  in  the  forward 
learning  order  and  the  more  crucial  condition  of  inverted  learn¬ 
ing  order.  Blence,  the  subjects  were  tested  in  successive  order 
upon  I  to  III,  II  to  IV,  and  IV  to  I  Maze  constructions.  Between 
the  completion  of  each  such  test,  the  subject  was  retrained 
upon  the  maze  as  a  whole.  This  not  only  tested  his  ability 
to  add  to  a  modified  act  all  the  original  parts  but  prepared  him 
for  an  equitable  attack  upon  each  novel  construction. 

The  behavior  in  the  several  changes  was  typical  throughout 
for  both  rats  and  humans.  A  slowing  up  of  speed  at  the  new 
junction  and  an  occasional  retrace  were  followed  by  a  headlong 
dash  into  the  new  section.  No  retracing  occurred  in  the  new 
section.  An  inspection  of  Tables  XIII  and  XIV,  p.  75,  shows  the 
amazing  accuracy  of  both  rats  and  humans  in  running  the 
sections  in  variable  order.  This  points  to  the  fact  that  a  motor 
unit  may  function  as  such,  provided  it  has  been  mastered  as 
part  of  a  ivhole.  It  shows  that  no  incompatibility  as  between 


28 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


specific  parts  exists  in  the  motor  problem.  Again,  it  enforced 
the  conclusion  reached  in  (d),  that  the  sections  have  no  in¬ 
herent  interference  when  functioning  in  immediate  contiguity. 
Taken  in  conjunction  with  (d),  it  proved  that  the  difficulty 
of  putting  the  parts  together  is  because  the  parts  were  learned 
as  unit  wholes. 

From  the  above  series  of  tests,  certain  definite  conclusions 
may  be  stated,  these  having  reference  to  the  alleged  causes  of 
waste  in  ‘part’  learning.  The  conclusions  apply  for  animals 
and  humans. 

( 1 )  Learning  one  motor  unit  does  not  render  the  mastery 
of  subsequent  units  more  difficult.  Transfer  is  strongly  posi¬ 
tive,  thus  pointing  out  a  clear  advantage  of  the  ‘part’  method. 

(2)  Practically  no  disintegration  of  the  motor  habit  occurs 
during  the  time  between  initial  mastery  and  the  final  connecting 
act. 

(3)  No  retro-active  inhibition  is  exerted  upon  motor  habits 
by  the  learning  of  subsequent  ones. 

(4)  Different  motor  units  may  function  as  units  in  any 
order.  Contiguity  of  unit  functioning  fails  to  disturb  the  motor 
habits. 

(5)  Parts  of  a  motor  act  present  no  incompatibility  to  each 
other  when  they  are  learned  as  parts  of  a  larger  motor  situa¬ 
tion.  They  may  function  perfectly  as  parts,  in  any  successive 
combination  of  parts,  or  in  the  entire  motor  series.  Their 
capacity  for  part  functioning  is  never  lost. 

The  above  generalizations  emphasize  the  necessity  of  exclud¬ 
ing  as  factors  of  waste  in  ‘part’  learning  whatever  refers  to 
the  mastery  of  the  several  units  or  the  interrelationship  between 
these  units.  By  these  elimination  tests,  the  writer  is  led  to 
conclude  that  waste  in  the  maze  problem  occurs  only  in  the 
act  of  connection  and  is  here  traceable  almost  entirely  to  the 
influence  of  place  association.  This  hypothesis  is  discussed  and 
tested  at  length  in  the  following  chapter. 


CHAPTER  V 


Place  Association  and  its  Relation  to  Impovement  of 

THE  ‘Part’  Method 

The  universal  inferiority  of  the  ‘part’  method  has  been  demon¬ 
strated.  Numerous  proposed  causes  of  waste  in  ‘part’  learn¬ 
ing  have  been  tested  and  rejected.  Chapter  IV  brought  out 
the  fact  that  the  writer  relies  mainly  upon  place  association 
for  an  explanation  of  the  poor  results  obtained  by  this  method. 

Place  association  refers  to  the  definite  location  of  an  ele¬ 
ment  of  a  problem  in  reference  not  only  to  the  remaining  de¬ 
tails  of  that  problem  but  to  the  entire  environment.  In  the 
case  of  rote  learning  a  certain  syllable  is  learned  in  reference 
to  its  antecedent  and  consequent  (immediate  association)  and 
to  the  remainder  of  the  terms  (mediate  association).  It  is 
hereby  assigned  a  definite  position  in  the  word  series.  This 
places  it  in  a  conceptual  scheme.  It  is  located  at  a  definite 
number  of  syllable  intervals  from  both  the  introductory  term 
and  the  terminal  one  of  the  list.  It  is  reached  after  the  same 
time  expenditure  in  each  trial  and  is  followed  by  a  constant 
time  span  for  the  completion  of  the  presentation.  Both  spatial 
and  temporal  factors  are  concerned  in  establishing  the  positional 
relationships. 

In  motor  learning  of  the  maze  type,  the  establishment  of 
place  associations  represents  a  large  part  of  the  learning.  These 
associations  are  no  doubt  very  complex.  Certain  ones  may 
be  indicated,  (a)  Time.  The  learner  comes  to  relate  a  cer¬ 
tain  time  span  to  a  certain  change  of  activity.  Specifically, 
a  short  time  run  for  the  rat  means  a  cessation  of  the  running 
activity  and  the  substitution  for  this  of  feeding.  Also,  it  is 
logical  to  suppose  that  each  critical  turn  or  element  of  the 
maze  pathway  is  located  (though  not  in  a  conceptual  sense) 
in  the  entire  time  span  just  as  definitely  as  a  term  is  located  in 
a  series  of  nonsense  syllables.  (b)  Distance.  The  learner 


30 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


is  taught  to  run  a  certain  distance  and  secure  a  desired  change 
of  activity.  In  the  case  of  ‘part’  learning,  each  section  re¬ 
quires  that  the  same  distance  be  traversed.  Consequently,  the 
learner  attacks  his  daily  problem  with  the  expectation  of  having 
it  solved  when  certain  clearly  defined  time  and  distance  de¬ 
mands  have  been  satisfied,  (c)  Details  of  the  maze  pathways. 
Each  turn,  cul  de  sac  and  section  of  the  true  pathway  become 
positionally  established.  A  given  corner  may  be  located  in 
reference  to  many  factors,  e.g.,  the  opening  into  the  food-box, 
the  starting  place,  the  next  cul  de  sac,  the  electric  lights,  the 
position  of  the  experimenter,  etc.  Each  aspect  of  the  course 
is  no  doubt  associated  with  and  located  in  reference  to  all  the 
details  of  the  course  and  to  the  entire  objective  environment 
as  well. 

The  above  suggestions  may  not  be  exhaustive.  It  seems  to 
the  writer,  however,  that  they  state  the  main  types  of  place 
associations  that  are  set  up  in  learning  the  maze  problem. 
Also,  it  seems  logical  to  assign  the  difficulty  of  the  act  of 
connection  in  ‘part’  learning  to  the  break  up  of  these  specific 
positional  factors.  If  they  are  causative  of  the  waste  in  ‘part’ 
learning,  the  behavior  of  the  learners  should  reveal  it.  Again, 
the  evidence  drawn  from  the  previous  experiments  must  sup¬ 
port  the  hypothesis.  Finally,  the  factors  of  place  association 
must  be  so  experimentally  treated  as  to  show  the  exact  way 
they  are  operating  to  condition  waste.  Such  a  treatment  of  these 
factors  would  produce  better  learning  results  than  were  secured 
by  the  pure  ‘part’  method  provided  the  factors  are  eliminated 
or  negated  to  some  degree.  This  would  demand  the  devising 
of  improved  methods  of  ‘part’  learning.  The  task  of  the  chapter 
is  given  to  the  three  necessary  lines  of  procedure  stated  above. 

(a)  Behavior. 

The  behavior  of  both  rats  and  humans  in  the  act  of  con¬ 
necting  the  successive  sections  was  described  in  Chapter  II. 
It  may  be  characterized  as  passing  through  ten  distinct  stages, 
(i)  Free  and  unchecked.  When  started  at  the  remotely  learned 
Section  I,  the  subject  “got  his  bearings”  and  proceeded  rapidly 
and  accurately.  (2)  Break  down  in  control.  This  occurred 


WHOLE  VS.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING 


31 


at  the  closed  exit  to  Section  1.  It  is  characterized  by  a  cessa¬ 
tion  of  forward  directed  activity.  (3)  Testing  of  old  habits. 
The  subject  might  retrace-  or  dash  into  Section  II.  He  had 
learned  the  meaning  of  the  retracing  habit  when  the  pathway 
was  blocked  (e.g.,  in  a  cul  de  sac)  and  also  the  going  ahead 
habit.  (4)  Failure  of  habitual  adjustment.  Retracing  brings 
failure.  Arrival  at  the  exit  of  Section  II  (generally  the  ex¬ 
ception  for  the  opening  trial  at  connecting)  brings  like  results. 
The  run  through  Section  II  was  irregular,  wavering,  and  gen¬ 
erally  given  up,  the  subject  returning  to  Exit  I  and  then  into 
Section  I.  This  stage  is  characterized  by  the  development  of 
a  strong  emotional  factor,  roughly  to  be  designated  as  con¬ 
fusion  or  lack  of  confidence.  (5)  Random  activity.  Here 
complete  inability  to  handle  the  situation  is  manifest.  Aimless 
darting  into  alleys,  incessant  complete  and  partial  returns,  com¬ 
plete  cessation  of  activity  followed  by  rapid  attacks  are  evident. 
(6)  Directed  activity.  The  subject  settles  down  to  the  prob¬ 
lem,  relying  not  on  specific  control  of  units  but  upon  his  gen¬ 
eral  maze  knowledge.  This  stage  is  one  characterized  by  per¬ 
sistency.  (7)  Accidental  success.  No  less  than  in  the  first 
act  of  learning,  this  trial  and  error  process  brings  the  desired 
result.  Judging  by  the  behavior  upon  the  last  few  sectional 
passageways,  the  subject  had  little,  if  any,  knowledge  that  he 
was  approaching  the  desired  goal.  Following  the  first  suc¬ 
cessful  trial,  the  subsecjuent  trials  suffice  for  the  (8)  fixation 
of  the  useful  movements,  (9)  elimination  of  the  useless,  and 
the  (10)  final  complete  organization  of  the  sensori-motor 
connection. 

The  above  analysis  of  the  behavior  in  the  act  of  connection 
shows  clearly  the  complete  breakdown  of  control.  Short  time 
and  distance  relationships  absolutely  fail  to  bring  the  changed 
activity  previously  secured.  A  specific  maze  corner  ceases  to 
mean  a  turn  “to  be  followed  by  food  getting.”  It  is  -now  a 
turn  that  leads  to  a  new  situation,  calling  for  far  more  time 
expenditure,  more  distance  to  be  traversed,  etc.  The  several 
closed  exits  represent  the  critical  points  where  old  habits  fail. 
Here  the  subjects  halts,  explores  the  situation,  and  shows  in 


32 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


every  possible  way  that  his  control  over  the  motor  situation 
has  broken  down. 

(b)  Comparison  with  previous  tests. 

It  was  demonstrated  in  Chapter  III  that  each  unit  of  the 
maze  could  function  perfectly  as  an  element.  This  ability 
was  shown  to  maintain  irrespective  of  the  order  of  functioning 
of  the  several  units.  This  fact  argues  that  positional  factors 
are  never  disturbed  so  long  as  the  motor  habits  are  allowed 
to  function  as  units,  but  that  the  connection  of  these  unit  habits 
into  a  series  immediately  brings  disturbance.  It  was  also  dem¬ 
onstrated  that  elements  learned  as  parts  of  a  whole  could  be 
put  together  in  any  fashion  without  difficulty.  Such  opera¬ 
tions  did  not  call  for  an  extension  and  enlargement  of  short 
temporal  and  spatial  relationships.  Rather,  they  represent  cases 
where  the  subject  reaches  his  goal  with  less  time  consumption 
and  less  distance  traversed  than  is  customaiy.  This  difference 
emphasizes  the  writer’s  general  contention.  It  seems  certain 
from  these  facts  that  the  place  associations  set  up  when  the 
parts  are  mastered  have  such  great  strength  that  they  render 
the  act  of  serial  connection  extremely  difficult. 

(c)  Experimentation  directed  toward  the  elimination  of  the 
positional  factors. 

It  is  obviously  impossible  to  devise  modified  methods  of 
‘part’  learning  where  some  positional  factors  (short  time  acts, 
short  distance  traversed,  etc.)  are  not  established.  No  test 
can  be  devised  to  eliminate  all  these  factors  at  once.  It  is 
necessary  to  eliminate  these  progressively  and  in  the  most  ad¬ 
vantageous  fashion.  The  tests  to  be  described  have  value  to 
the  extent  in  which  they  eliminate  or  negate  to  a  degree  some 
one  or  some  group  of  the  positional  factors.  The  nature  of 
each  new  test  and  the  learning  will  be  treated  comparatively. 
A  presentation  of  the  learning  scores  and  an  appropriate  evalua¬ 
tion  of  each  method  are  reserved  until  this  preliminary  survey 
of  the  methods  and  the  learning  behavior  has  been  made.  (See 
pages  39  sq.) 

(i)  ‘Direct  Repetitive’. 

Rat  groups  and  humans  were  trained  upon  Section  I  until 


WHOLE  VS.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING 


33 


mastery  was  accomplished.  At  this  stage,  the  individual  sub¬ 
ject  was  required  to  run  through  the  mastered  Section  I  into 
Section  II.  This  change  in  the  maze  pathway  was  rendered 
possible  by  the  removal  of  the  dividing  panel  and  the  closing 
of  Exit  I.  When  mastery  of  the  I-II  course  was  completed, 
III  was  added  to  the  accumulating  series,  finally  IV.  In  each 
modification,  then,  the  subject  was  required  to  repeat  the  familiar 
area  and  to  enter  the  strange.  A  review  of  the  mastered  sec¬ 
tions  was  hereby  given  in  each  trial.  Furthermore,  the  place 
associations  set  up  during  the  mastery  of  Section  I  were  re¬ 
constructed  as  soon  as  mastery  was  attained.  The  problem 
was  made  to  expand.  ‘Part’  learning  called  for  an  isolated 
attack  upon  Section  II,  this  and  subsecjuent  sections  serving 
very  largely  to  make  more  deeply  seated  the  short  time  and 
short  distance  factors  of  each  maze  unit.  The  identity  in  length 
of  the  four  units  argues  for  this.  But  by  this  ‘direct  repetitive’ 
method,  however,  the  positional  factors  are  no  sooner  set  up 
than  they  are  made  to  relate  to  a  larger,  more  complex  situation. 

The  behavior  of  these  groups  was  characteristic.  Eipon  finding 
Exit  I  blocked,  the  rat  usually  proceeded  very  cautiously  into 
Section  II,  generally  making  numerous  partial  returns  to  Exit  I. 
Seldom  was  retracing  continued  through  Section  I.  The  human 
behaved  the  same  way,  but  the  retracing  was  probably  less  marked. 
Both  for  rats  and  humans,  there  was  little  or  no  hesitation 
after  the  second  trial  upon  the  arrival  at  Exit  I.  The  same 
is  true  for  retracing.  The  entire  efforts  of  the  learners  seemed 
directed  to  the  mastery  of  the  final,  unfamiliar  unit.  The  speed 
of  approach  to  this  attack  was  generated  by  the  running  of 
Section  I.  It  shows  the  operation  of  a  factor  roughly  to  be 
considered  the  influence  of  the  known.  It  bespeaks  for  the 
method  a  favorable  “warming-up”  period.  (See  Tables  XVII  & 
XVIII). 

(2)  ‘Reversed  Repetitive’. 

Rat  and  human  groups  were  trained  upon  Section  IV  until 
mastery  was  attained.  As  soon  as  the  individual  mastered  this 
final  unit,  he  was  required  to  attack  the  third,  working  through 
this  into  the  previously  learned  IV.  In  turn,  he  added  on  as  the 
first  part  of  the  accumulating  motor  series  Sections  II  and  I. 


34 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


In  each  modification,  then,  the  subject  attacked  the  novel  and 
ended  each  trial  by  traversing  the  familiar.  The  problem  may 
be  stated  as  testing  the  influence  of  the  unknown.  This 
method  of  learning  is,  therefore,  the  reverse  of  the  ‘direct  repe¬ 
titive’  described  above.  It  consists  essentially  in  learning  the 
maze  backwards,  as  opposed  to  the  forward  aspect  of  the  pre¬ 
vious  method.  Each  trial  calls  not  only  for  the  partial  mastery 
of  a  new  section  (the  first  part  of  each  run)  but  for  the  final 
review  of  the  previously  mastered  units  as  well.  Both  these 
‘repetitive’  methods  differ  from  the  ‘part’  method  in  the  fact 
that  the  various  sections  are  not  mastered  separately.  The  value 
of  these  repetitive  methods  seems  obvious.  Place  factors  never 
become  strongly  established.  This  is  doubly  clear  in  this  last 
mentioned  method  (‘reversed  repetitive’).  Herein  the  subject 
has  never  learned  habits  of  stopping,  except  at  one  particular 
place,  i.e.,  the  open  door  of  the  food-box.  The  following  para¬ 
graph  on  the  behavior  in  this  learning  method  shows  why  this  is 
true. 

The  behavior  of  these  groups  differs  from  that  of  the  ‘direct 
repetitive’  type.  Usually,  after  the  learning  of  general  maze 
habits  in  Section  IV,  the  new  problem  was  attacked  eagerly. 
When  the  entrance  from  III  into  IV  was  reached  (a  place  where 
the  subject  had  never  learned  to  stop)  recognition  with  the  rats 
was  extremely  obvious.  Speed  was  cjuickened  and  Section  IV 
run  with  precision.  This  general  behavior  was  manifest  for  all 
the  successive  modifications.  There  was  never  any  stopping  at 
a  closed  door,  for  the  subject  had  never  made  any  associations 
of  food  getting,  changing  of  running  activity,  etc.,  with  this. 
Rather,  the  closed  door  meant  the  entrance  to  a  familiar  maze 
section,  one  that  called  for  cpiickened  speed  and  the  satisfying 
of  the  desired  activity  at  the  same  identical  terminal  point. 
But  the  recognition  cue  in  the  case  of  the  humans  failed  to 
function  as  definitely.^  (See  Tables  XVII  and  XVIII.)  Conse- 

1  Maze  studies  o’f  Carr  and  Watson  (31  and  20)  seem  to  argue  for  the 
strength  of  the  kinaesthetic  cue  as  the  recognitive  agency  in  the  maze 
situation.  The  evidence  of  the  present  research  assigns  most  of  the 
recognitive  capacity  to  vision.  Failure  of  recognition  with  the  humans 
may  be  due  to  lack  of  vision.  Of  course,  the  question  whether  the  human 
had  reduced  the  control  to  the  kinaesthetic  level  is  involved. 


WHOLE  FS.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING 


35 


quently  this  method  fails  to  score  very  high  with  the  humans. 

(3)  ‘Progressive  Part’. 

Rat  and  human  groups  were  trained  in  Section  I,  and  then 
taught  Section  II  as  a  new  problem.  Connection  of  Sections  I 
and  II  was  then  required,  this  being-  followed  by  a  mastery  of 
III  and  its  addition  to  the  I-II  course.  A  final  tuition  on  IV 
and  its  addition  to  the  I-II  I  series  completed  the  experiment. 
This  type  of  learning  resembles  the  part  method  in  that  the 
sections  are  learned  as  definite  units.  But  these  parts  are  made 
to  function  as  soon  as  the  first  two  are  learned  in  a  bigger, 
more  complex  motor  situation.  The  strength  of  place  asso¬ 
ciations  is  not  continually  on  the  increase,  as  is  the  case  when 
four  equal  units  are  mastered  in  pure  ‘part’  learning.  Rather, 
single  groups  of  these  positional  factors  are  progressively  elimin¬ 
ated.  Consequently,  the  method  may  be  termed  ‘progressive 
part’.  The  influence  of  successively  learned  additions  is  hereby 
measured.  Herein  the  difference  between  this  ‘progressive  part’ 
and  the  ‘repetitive  part’  methods  is  clearly  seen.  The  latter  call 
for  a  review  of  the  mastered  areas  in  conjunction  with  the 
learning  of  the  new.  Two  types  of  activity  are  present.  The 
former  method  demands  either  the  exploring  activity  or  that 
different  type  required  for  the  connection  of  mastered  sections. 
These  cases  are  quite  different.  The  significance  of  this  fact 
will  be  commented  upon  later  in  the  chapter.  Also,  these 
methods  relate  differently  to  the  positional  factors.  The  ‘direct 
repetitive’  method  demands  a  disregard  of  the  place  associa¬ 
tions  set  up  in  reference  to  the  exit  of  the  first  short  maze 
section  and  an  entry  into  an  unknown  area.  The  ‘reversed  repe¬ 
titive’  method  calls  for  an  initial  attack  upon  a  novel  situation, 
this  being  terminated  by  a  recognition  of  and  a  hurried  traversal 
through  the  known  areas.  Little  unseating  of  place  associations 
is  demanded.  The  ‘progressive  part’  method  demands  a  dis¬ 
regard  of  the  place  associations  as  in  the  ‘direct  repetitive’  case. 
However,  such  disregard  is  far  easier  because  the  area  to  be 
entered  is  entirely  familiar  and  is  that  which  has  just  been 
mastered.  The  difference  of  these  three  cases  is  highly 
significant. 


36 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


The  behavior  of  rats  and  humans  was  strictly  parallel.  Sec¬ 
tions  I  and  II  were  mastered  in  regular  fashion.  The  connec¬ 
tion  of  the  two  presented  little  difficulty,  not  nearly  the  degree 
manifested  by  the  original  ‘Part’  Group.  It  was  shown  in 
Chapter  II  that  few  of  these  ‘part’  learners  progressed  as  far 
as  Exit  II  without  errors.  (Note  that  such  a  group  has  four 
units  mastered  rather  than  two).  In  fact,  most  of  the  sub¬ 
jects,  both  rats  and  humans,  effected  the  connection  without 
errors  of  any  type.  The  subsequent  learning  of  III  and  IV 
and  their  successive  additions  follow  the  description  of  easy 
learning  just  stated  for  I  and  II.  Certain  rats  and  humans 
effected  the  entire  series  of  combining  acts  without  error.  The 
behavior  of  each  subject  clearly  shows  that  the  elimination  of 
the  place  associations  is  rendered  very  easy  by  this  ‘progressive 
part’  method.  (See  Tables  XVII  and  XVIII.) 

(4)  ‘Elaborative  Part’. 

This  experiment  was  not  planned  as  an  improvement  upon 
the  part  method  but  represents  one  of  the  happy  accidents  that 
occasionally  turn  up  in  a  research  largely  directed  into  the  dark. 
The  work  was  restricted  to  rats.  It  is  included  here  for  sug¬ 
gestive  and  not  comparative  purposes.  Also,  it  throws  some 
light  upon  the  results  of  the  ‘modified  part’  methods  just  de¬ 
scribed.  The  work  is  here  discussed  in  detail,  as  it  will  not  be 
referred  to  in  the  subsequent  discussion  of  results  (pp.  39  sq.). 

The  test  group  of  rats  was  the  same  as  that  reported  in 
Chapter  IV,  Section  d.  This  group  had  been  trained  as  for 
‘part’  learning  except  that  no  act  of  connection  had  been 
allowed.  Hence,  the  rats  had  command  of  four  distinct  maze 
habits.  They  were  tested  upon  succeeding  days  for  their  control 
of  the  units,  taking  in  succession  various  changing  pairs.  On 
the  sixth  day,  the  rats  were  required  to  run  the  entire  collec¬ 
tion  of  units  but  in  the  order  directly  opposed  to  that  finally  to 
be  desired.-  The  extreme  skill  in  doing  this  has  been  com- 

2  This  complex  reviewing  of  the  units  in  no  sense  altered  the  place- 
association  factors  set  up  for  each  motor  unit.  Rather,  it  required  the 
rat  to  adapt  quickly  to  a  change  in  sensory  conditions.  It  forced  him  to 
utilize  successively  all  the  motor  habits  at  his  disposal.  It  prepared  him  to 
attack  any  maze  situation  without  delay.  In  these  respects  the  ‘elaborative 


WHOLE  VS.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING 


37 


merited  upon.  (See  page  26.)  Immediately  at  the  close  of 
this  IV,  III,  II,  I  testing,  the  rat  was  placed  in  Section  I  and 
given  opportunity  of  connecting  all  the  parts.  The  data  are 
recorded  in  Table  XIX.  These  are  itemized  for  the  specific  runs 
given  and  are  complete  up  to  trial  four.  By  the  end  of  this 
trial  the  entire  group  had  mastered  the  entire  maze.  (Trials 
2-4  were  given  the  day  following  trial  i). 

Significant  comment  must  be  made  regarding  the  connecting 
behavior.  Two  of  the  rats  ran  perfectly;  three  entered  one 
blind  alley;  but  continued  the  journey;  one  entered  one  blind 
alley  and  returned  fifteen  sections  to  the  doorway,  this  being 
followed  by  a  perfect  run.  The  time  of  this  initial  trial  was 
remarkably  low  (41  seconds).  The  ability  to  connect  the  sec¬ 
tions  certainly  seemed  amazing  in  view  of  the  behavior  mani¬ 
fested  by  the  ‘part’  group  reported  in  Chapter  II.  The  method 
closely  duplicates  the  original  ‘part’  method.  The  sole  differ¬ 
ences  are  that  the  unit  sections  were  run  in  immediate  succes¬ 
sion  as  units  just  before  the  connecting  act,  and  that  there 
was  a  review  of  the  parts  during  the  several  days  just  preceding 
the  connecting  trial.  This  is  responsible  for  the  great  dif¬ 
ference  in  results. 

Certain  causative  factors  are  perhaps  statable. 

(a)  It  may  be  that  there  is  a  slight  loss  in  the  ability  to  control 
the  specific  motor  habits,  this  being  traceable  to  the  disintegra¬ 
tion  through  time  and  to  retroactive  inhibition.  But  such  a 
loss  certainly  proves  non-effective  in  causing  disturbance  when 
the  sections  are  run  simply  as  units.  The  general  adaptive 
powers  of  the  organism  may  prove  too  weak,  however,  when 
the  four  motor  habits  are  required  to  function  together,  and 
in  conjunction  with  disturbances  of  place  associations.  Hence, 
the  ‘elaborative  part’  procedure  has  its  value  not  in  running 
two  or  more  sections  on  the  same  day,  but  in  practicing  the 
various  sections  separately  and  hereby  eliminating  loss.  This 
is  a  ‘practice’,  a  ‘warming  up’,  or  a  ‘refreshing’  theory. 

part’  method  differs  from  the  pure  ‘part’  method.  The  two  methods  do 
not  differ  in  so  far  as  the  former  has  specifically  eliminated  certain  of 
the  positional  factors  before  the  final  act  of  connection. 


38 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


(b)  The  difference  between  the  ‘part’  and  ‘elaborative  part’ 
scores  may  be  due  to  place  association.  In  ‘part’  learning,  the 
rat  learns  a  series  of  acts, — runs  one  section;  eats  food;  runs 
the  same  section;  eats  food;  removal  to  cage.  This  is  a  unitary 
series  and  is  completed  each  day.  In  the  ‘elaborative’  method, 
the  final  procedure  is  different.  Here  the  series  of  acts  learned 
is  illustrated  by  the  following  procedure : — runs  Section  I ;  eats 
food ;  runs  Section  II ;  eats  food ;  etc. ;  removal  to  cage.  This 
is  wholly  different  from  the  series  established  while  mastery 
of  the  separate  units  was  being  attained.  It  breaks  up  this 
earlier  series  of  acts.  This  break-up  is  not  so  great  but  that 
the  rat  can  adapt  to  it.  Yet  it  is  sufficient  to  make  the  transfer 
to  the  connecting  situation  (I-IV)  far  easier.  In  other  words, 
it  might  be  possible  to  proceed  from  four  unit  sections  to  link¬ 
ing  these  without  a  manifest  disturbance,  provided  such  was 
accomplished  by  gradual  steps. 

(c)  In  linking  four  units  together,  positive  association  must 
be  established.  Some  connection  may  be  established  while  the 
units  are  being  learned,  for  all  the  units  are  parts  of  a  com¬ 
mon  situation  of  food,  location  environment,  experience,  etc. 
The  act  of  linking  requires  a  closer  association  and  this  is  ac¬ 
complished  by  contiguity, — functioning  in  immediate  succes¬ 
sion.  The  connecting  act  of  ‘part’  learning  serves  this  need. 
The  ‘elaborative  part’  method  aids  the  establishment  of  the 
final  close  association  by  bringing  the  units  together  in  time 
and  in  succession  for  the  first  time,  and  yet  in  such  a  way  that 
the  distractions  which  cause  errors  are  not  present.  The  units 
are  first  brought  together  two  at  a  time  instead  of  four,  and 
this  proceeding  by  easy  stages  is  advantageous, 

(d)  On  first  thought,  the  difference  in  scores  for  the  ‘part’ 
and  ‘elaborative  part’  groups  may  be  largely  due  to  group  dif¬ 
ferences.  This  hypothesis  is  worthless,  as  the  behavior  and 
records  of  the  two  groups  clearly  show.  (See  pages  ii  and 
37-) 

(e)  Some  possibility  unnoticed  by  the  writer  may  be  ex¬ 
planatory  for  the  difference  of  results.  The  above  points  are 
merely  suggestive  and  it  may  be  that  they  are  not  exhaustive 
for  the  situation. 


WHOLE  VS.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING 


39 


Leaving  the  speculative  treatment  of  the  ‘elaborative  part’ 
method,  there  are  certain  general  conclusions  that  may  be  drawn 
from  an  inspection  of  Tables  XVII  and  XVIII,  page  76,  re¬ 
garding  the  ‘modified  part’  methods. 

( 1 )  For  the  rats. 

The  three  modifications  of  the  ‘part’  method  all  prove  superior 
to  the  ‘pure  part’  method  and  to  the  ‘whole’,  irrespective  of  the  , 
favorable  blockage  of  returns.  Superiority  is  demonstrated  by 
all  the  criteria  of  measurement  (time,  trials,  and  total  errors), 
except  for  the  total  error  criterion  in  the  case  of  the  ‘direct 
repetitive’  method.  Here  the  total  errors  exceed  the  number 
in  the  ‘whole’  method  with  returns  prevented.  This  difference 
is  no  doubt  due  directly  to  an  allowable  retracing  (Type  C 
error)  in  the  case  of  the  former  method.  This  exception,  how¬ 
ever,  disappears  by  making  a  comparison  with  the  forward 
cul  de  sac  (Type  A)  error.  The  ‘part’  method  and  the  ‘whole’ 
method  with  returns  allowed  prove  inefficient  as  learning 
methods. 

(2)  For  the  humans. 

One  of  the  modified  part  methods  (‘progressive  part’)  proves 
superior  by  all  criteria  of  measurement  to  the  ‘whole’  and 
‘part’  modes  of  maze  learning.  The  ‘direct  repetitive’  method 
proves  superior  by  all  measuring  criteria  to  the  ‘whole’  method 
with  returns  unprevented.  However,  this  ‘direct  repetitive’ 
method  requires  more  time  and  develops  more  errors  than  the 
‘whole’  method  with  returns  prevented.  This  difference  again 
disappears  by  making  a  trial  comparison  with  Type  A  errors. 
Time  was  lost  and  errors  accumulated  by  the  possibility  of 
returns,  as  the  data  show  the  errors  of  the  B  and  C  type  are 
higher  than  in  the  ‘whole  prevented’  method.  The  ‘reversed 
repetitive’  method  falls  to  fifth  place  and  its  location  is  like¬ 
wise  definite  for  all  criteria  of  measurement.  The  enormous 
number  of  retrace  errors  (Type  C)  is  due  no  doubt  to  failure 
in  recognizing  the  mastered  section  upon  reaching  it.  Here 
the  behavior  and  records  differ  markedly  from  the  rats  and 
raise  the  question  of  kinaesthesis  functioning  as  a  recognitive 
means  (see  note,  p.  34).  The  pure  ‘part’  method  is  last  in 
the  list,  irrespective  of  measuring  criteria. 


40 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


(3)  Rats  and  humans. 

The  ‘progressive  part’  method  proves  universally  superior 
for  all  types  of  learning  methods.  The  ‘reversed  repetitive’  is 
highly  favorable  with  the  rat  but  less  so  with  the  human,  this 
difference  being  statable  in  terms  of  recognitive  ability.  The 
‘direct  repetitive’  method  is  for  both  groups  more  favorable 
than  ‘part’  learning  and,  in  general,  than  for  ‘whole’  learning 
(See  exception  in  2  above).  It  thus  shares  favorable  univer¬ 
sality  with  the  ‘progressive  part’  method.  The  ‘whole’  method 
when  returns  are  prevented  is  universally  superior  to  the  case 
where  returns  are  allowed  in  so  far  as  regards  time  and  errors 
but  not  the  number  of  trials;  in  comparison  with  modified  ‘part’ 
methods  either  ‘whole’  method  is  inferior.  The  ‘reversed  repeti¬ 
tive’  method  fails  to  prove  efficient  with  the  human,  due  no 
doubt  to  the  failure  in  recognition  of  the  previously  mastered 
sections.  The  pure  ‘part’  method  is  the  most  inefficient  method 
used,  waiving  a  single  exception  with  the  rats,  this  poor  result 
being  assignable  to  the  unlimited  possibilities  of  retracing.  It 
is  interesting  to  note  that  the  number  of  trials,  number  of 
seconds,  and  number  of  total  errors  for  mastery  by  a  certain 
method  are  in  absolute  terms,  universally  less  for  the  human 
than  for  the  rat. 

(4)  Correlations. 

Table  XX  shows  roughly  the  (a)  correlation  between  the  dif¬ 
ferent  measuring  criteria  for  all  types  of  motor  problems  de¬ 
vised.  For  both  rats  and  humans  this  correlation  is  high.  It 
argues  that  rats  or  humans  manifest  high  regularity  in  time 
and  energy  expenditure  for  various  motor  methods.  It  shows 
that  there  is  no  royal  road  to  mastery  for  the  human  not  open 
to  the  rat.  Also,  it  shows  that  correlation  is  very  strong  be¬ 
tween  number  of  trials  and  Type  A  errors,  but  that  this  weak¬ 
ens  in  comparing  Type  A  errors  with  total  time  or  total  errors. 

(b)  The  cross  comparison  for  rats  and  humans  shows  that 
there  is  good  correlation  in  respect  to  the  number  of  trials  re- 
cjuired  by  the  various  learning  methods  for  mastery.  There  is 
much  less  correlation  when  the  measurement  is  in  terms  of  time 
expenditure  or  the  accumulation  of  errors.  The  error  measure- 


WHOLE  I'S.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING 


41 


ments  show  that  the  highest  correlation  exists  between  the  Type 
A  errors  (forward  directed  cul  de  sacs). 

The  above  experiments  have  been  directed  toward  the  verifica¬ 
tion  of  the  place  association  hypothesis  proposed  in  the  earlier 
sections  of  the  chapter.  They  have  shown  that  the  positional 
factors  may  be  so  progressively  eliminated  in  various  forms  of 
‘part’  learning  as  to  render  these  forms  (i.e.,  modified  ‘part’ 
methods)  much  more  efficient  than  the  original  ‘part’  or  ‘whole’ 
methods.  At  the  risk  of  repetition,  it  seems  advisable  to  restate 
certain  favorable  aspects  of  these  efficient  modified  ‘part’  methods. 

(a)  Progressive  elimination  of  the  emotional  factor. 

Remembering  the  indecision,  random  activity,  full  stopping, 
etc.,  of  the  ‘part’  learners  when  in  the  act  of  connection,  its 
absence  in  modified  ‘part’  behavior  is  significant.  With  the  ‘pro¬ 
gressive  part’  method,  the  learning  of  Part  I  and  II  arouses 
a  complex  emotional  state  which  must  perforce  be  overcome 
while  these  parts  are  being  mastered.  The  connection  of  these 
fails  to  re-arouse  indecision,  fear  (with  the  rats,  especially),  etc., 
for  the  entire  course  is  a  known  safe  one,  presenting  but  a  single 
novel  feature,  f.c.,  the  connecting  unit.  This  seems  to  be  at¬ 
tacked  without  bringing  any  strong  emotional  accessories.  Part 

III  is  again  a  new  but  relatively  less  emotion-provoking  situa¬ 
tion.  Its  addition  to  the  known  course  follows  the  subsidence 
of  the  emotional  complex.  Again,  the  task  presents  but  a  single 
new  feature,  comparable  to  the  like  feature  previously  met.  The 
course  to  be  traversed  is  a  longer,  but  still  a  safe  course.  Part 

IV  is  learned  without  arousing  to  a  significant  degree  any  emo¬ 
tional  tone  whatever  and  the  various  motor  acts  have  been  so 
progressively  interrelated  as  to  call  forth  little  if  any  of  this 
emotional  disturbance  during  the  final  combining  stage.  In  gen¬ 
eral,  the  only  occasions  for  the  arousal  of  the  complex  are  dur¬ 
ing  the  short  task  of  unit  learning  (where  the  state  must  be 
eliminated  before  final  mastery)  and  in  the  single  act  of  con¬ 
nection  (the  three  successive  acts  becoming  successively  easier). 
With  the  pure  ‘part’  method,  the  mastery  of  each  part  has  called 
for  the  arousal  and  subsiding  of  fear,  hesitation,  etc.  The  task 
of  connection  involves,  therefore,  a  re-arousal  of  the  injurious 


42 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


emotional  tone  at  the  three  critical  connecting  points.  And  the 
strength  of  this  is  cumulative.  The  connection  of  the  first  two 
maze  elements  arouses  it  very  little,  but  the  subsequent  addition 
of  the  remaining  section  brings  very  marked  disturbance.  Neither 
rat  nor  human  succeeds  in  avoiding  this.  The  ‘direct  repetitive’ 
and  ‘reversed  repetitive’  methods  demand  a  rhythmic  arousal 
and  subsidence  of  the  emotional  factor,  this  having  a  degree  of 
strength  far  greater  than  with  the  ‘progressive’  method.  It  is 
simultaneously  involved  in  mastering  the  added  unfamiliar  sec¬ 
tion  (whether  approached  from  the  familiar  or  leading  to  it) 
and  in  affecting  the  junction  of  the  two.  The  emotional  com¬ 
plexity  logically  results  in  poorer  learning  scores,  an  hypothesis 
admirably  supported  by  the  data.  However,  this  becomes  rela¬ 
tively  less  operative  for  the  final  additions.  In  all  cases,  this 
complexity  is  much  less  than  is  produced  by  the  act  of  con¬ 
nection  in  the  ‘part’  method.  It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  the 
emotional  element,  though  always  present,  can  be  distributed  to 
one  or  several  definite  maze  points  and  progressively  eliminated. 
This  is  impossible  with  ‘part’  learning  and  likewise  with  ‘whole’ 
learning,  where  numerous  tricky,  blocking  situations  are  met  with 
for  many  successive  trials. 

(b)  Progressive  elimination  of  the  positional  factors. 

(i)  Temporal.  Partially  causative  of  the  emotional  disturb¬ 
ance  are,  of  course,  the  time  relationships.  In  ‘part’  learning, 
each  run  has  been  shown  to  correlate  with  a  brief  time  span, 
this  ending  with  changed  sensory  conditions  of  desirability.  In 
learning  two  short  units,  the  brevity  of  the  temporal  series  is 
not  so  firmly  a  part  of  the  subjects  reacting  system  as  when  four 
had  been  mastered.  Hence,  the  tendency  to  stop  after  running 
a  single  unit  is  more  easily  modified.  Also,  the  overcoming  of 
this  stopping  tendency  is  always  followed  by  success  and  with 
utilizing  but  one,  short-time  activity.  As  the  accumulation  and 
connection  of  parts  proceed,  the  successive  demands  never  call  for 
but  one  such  short-time  addition.  The  temporal  series  progres¬ 
sively  increases  but  always  by  a  definite,  short-time,  success¬ 
bringing  act.  With  the  pure  ‘part’  method,  the  subject  knows 
little  beyond  a  relatively  high  number  of  deeply  intrenched  short- 


WHOLE  VS.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING 


43 


time  acts.  The  break-up  of  one  of  these  temporal  relationships 
is  relatively  easy  (though  harder  than  if  only  two  had  been  es¬ 
tablished),  but  this  is  unattended  with  success.  Neither  are  the 
immediately  subsequent  ones  success  giving,  for  only  the  last 
and  most  recently  mastered  time  unit  can  so  function.  The 
demands  upon  the  time  relationships  are  invariably  too  great. 
With  the  other  forms  of  modified  ‘part’  methods,  no  short-time 
factor  ever  becomes  strongly  seated.  As  soon  as  one  is  set  up, 
it  is  immediately  modified  by  an  addition  of  like  extent.  The 
erection  of  the  temporal  side  of  the  final  maze  situation  is  pro¬ 
gressive  throughout.  This  progression  is  by  stated,  constant, 
temporal  units  and  differs  herein  from  the  ‘whole’  methods.  In 
the  latter,  theoretically,  the  final  time  series  is  under  construc¬ 
tion  from  the  beginning  of  the  tuition  period.  By  preventing  re¬ 
turns  (by  cutting  the  course  into  four  sections),  not  one  but  four 
rival  time  units  of  the  final  total  are  being  constructed,  and  not 
only  as  units  but  as  parts  of  an  indefinite  whole.  With  returns 
allowed,  probably  many  more  such  units  are  set  up ;  having  to  do 
with  all  areas  of  difficulty  of  the  course.  In  neither  such  case, 
therefore,  is  the  erection  of  the  time  series  progressively  or 
chronologically  made.  Temporal  habits  of  stopping  are  not 
deeply  engendered,  but  the  final  series  is  slow  in  being  attained. 
It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  the  values  of  the  modified  ‘part’ 
methods  rest  in  large  measure  upon  (a)  progressive  elimination 
of  the  positional  factor  of  time  and  the  fact  that  the  (b)  final 
time  series  is  successively  extended  by  short  regular  additions  as 
opposed  to  an  internal  adjustment  of  a  constant  and  highly  com¬ 
plex  whole. 

(2)  Spatial. 

Spatial  factors  function  in  like  manner.  The  position  of  each 
section  and  turn  (no  doubt  especially  so  for  final  turns)  is 
mediately  associated  with  the  spatial  terminus  of  the  run.  The 
last  turn  means  open  doorway,  food  getting,  and  a  complete 
change  in  sensory  factors.  With  ‘progressive  part’  learning, 
relatively  few  of  these  are  set  up  by  mastering  Sections  I  and 
II.  Those  that  are  indicative  of  arrival  at  Exit  I  do  have  to 
be  uprooted  in  the  first  connecting  act.  Their  poverty  of 


44 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


number  is  in  their  favor.  Once  eliminated  they  function  in 
the  larger  series.  Each  addition  to  the  expanding  series  calls 
for  a  readjustment  but  this  is  always  directed  towards  a  con¬ 
stant  goal,  constant  results,  and  over  familiar  territory.  Many 
of  the  adjustments  are  primarily  with  an  unconnected  but 
familiar  unit,  not  internal  to  the  great  mass  already  satisfactorily 
arranged  and  now  functioning  as  a  unit  group.  This  spatial 
demand  is,  therefore,  progressively  met.  With  connection  of 
many  parts  being  required,  the  demands  of  spatial  readjust¬ 
ment  obviously  are  multiplied  to  a  high  degree.  Suppose  each 
section  requires  for  mastery  the  establishment  of  at  least  two 
positional  factors.  Using  letter  denominations,  in  Section  I 
are  established  factors  A  and  B.  But  logically  and  empirically 
these  are  to  have  unit  functioning,  i.e.,  as  AB.  Mastery  of 
Section  II  required  the  establishment  of  C  and  D,  but  these 
are  reduced  to  the  single  CD  unity.  The  immediate  connec¬ 
tion  of  the  dual  AB  and  CD  groups  again  involves  but  two 
adjustments.  Section  III  requires  two  establishments  for  E 
and  F,  but  their  reduction  to  unit  functioning  requires  only  two 
new  establishments  with  the  ABCD  unity.  In  short,  for  the 
complete  mastery  of  these  hypothetical  situations,  there  is  de¬ 
manded  the  establishment  of  only  fourteen  such  relational  fac¬ 
tors.  The  small  number  is  traceable  to  the  demonstrated 
capacity  of  a  complex,  automatized  group  to  function  as  a  unit 
in  needed  adjustments  to  an  external  situation.  No  internal 
readjustments  of  great  degree  seems  rationally  or  empirically 
needed. 

With  the  ‘direct  repetitive’  method  the  first  section  reduces 
the  two  adjustments,  A  and  B,  to  a  unit.  When  this  unit 
adjusts  to  the  new,  now-to-be-mastered,  C-D  situation,  'the 
permutations  are  between  three  terms,  namely  AB,  C  and  D. 
Consequently  six  adjustments  are  required  to  establish  the 
ABCD  unit.  With  the  addition  of  E-F  and  again  of  G-H,  the 
adjusting  demands  remain  six  for  each  such  addition.  This 
method  requires,  therefore,  a  total  of  seventy  such  spatial 
positional  attainments.  The  same  number  holds  for  the  ‘re¬ 
versed  repetitive’  method.  In  both  cases,  the  demands  of  read- 


WHOLE  VS.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING 


45 


justment  of  the  spatial  factors  are  successively  met.  The 
demand  is  initially  never  high  and  it  becomes  increasingly  easy. 
Yet  these  ‘repetitive’  methods  always  require  a  greater  number 
of  adjustments  than  the  ‘progressive  part’  methods  and  the 
character  of  these  adjustments  is  more  complex.  This  increase 
in  complexity  of  character  depends  mainly  upon  the  demand 
for  a  triple  accommodation  {e.g.,  AB  with  C  and  D)  as  opposed 
to  a  dual  demand  {e.g.,  AB  with  CD). 

The  spatial  complexity  in  the  remaining  methods  is  obvious. 
In  ‘part’  learning,  the  four  units  require  a  minimum  of  eight 
positional  establishments.  When  each  pair  is  reduced  to  a 
unit  and  thrown  into  the  connectidn  series,  the  four  units  func¬ 
tioning  without  errors  require  twelve  combinations,  bringing 
a  total  to  equal  either  ‘repetitive’  method  and  to  exceed  the 
‘progressive  part’  by  43%.  But  even  this  numerical  equality 
is  deceiving.  The  permutations  are  not  in  reference  to  single 
successive  functional  units  but  to  remotely  successive  as  well, 
and  both  forward  and  backward  in  direction.  Rationally,  then, 
the  task  is  hard.  Empirically,  the  ability  of  units  to  function 
as  a  whole  is  destroyed.  A  veritable  dissociation  of  component 
maze  elements  takes  place.  The  subject,  having  had  the  mastered 
groups  broken  up,  begins  the  new  and  highly  complex  task  of 
erecting  a  bigger,  positional  series  out  of  the  wreckage  left 
him.  The  maze  records  show  that  he  does  this  little  or  no 
better  than  if  he  had  had  no  earlier  sectional  training.  (In 
the  case  of  the  rat,  the  group  seems  almost  the  worse  for  the 
training.  Tables  I  and  VI  reveal  that  the  connecting  act  re¬ 
quired  almost  the  time  of,  and  accumulated  more  errors  than, 
‘whole-prevented’  learning.  Tables  III  and  IV  show  that  con¬ 
ditions  were  even  more  disturbed  for  the  human,  even  in  the 
‘whole-allowed’  case).  In  ‘whole’  learning,  with  all  eight  A-H 
establishments  simultaneously  in  demand,  fifty-six  combinations 
are  needed.  In  the  ‘whole-prevented’  method,  the  same  number 
is  required,  but  the  arbitrary  cutting  of  the  maze  into  four 
sections  may  tend  to  reduce  sectional  pairs  to  relatively  early 
and  complete  unity.  This  has  its  reward  in  the  saving  of  errors 
and  time.  This  possible  economy  is  spent  with  ‘whole-allowed’ 


46 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


learning  in  setting  up  the  numerous  far-distant  and  backward 
directed  associations. 

It  appears,  therefore,  that  values  of  modified  ‘part’  methods  in 
comparison  with  pure  ‘part’  and  ‘whole’  methods  are  statable 
mainly  in  the  progressive  and  distributive  handling  they  furnish  to 
the  positional  factors,  whether  these  are  considered  as  emo¬ 
tional  or  in  more  objective  forms  of  time  and  space.  Such 
conclusions  have  apparent  justification  in  logical,  mathematical, 
and  empirical  sources.  They  argue  that  the  relative  advantages 
of  the  various  ‘part’  methods  must  be  due  mainly  to  the  degree 
in  which  place  associations  are  obviated. 

The  results  of  the  employment  of  modified  ‘part’  methods 
for  the  elimination  of  place  associations  may  be  summarized 
as  follows : 

( 1 )  The  behavior  in  the  act  of  connection,  the  conclusions 
drawn  from  previous  tests,  and  the  data  secured  by  utilizing 
modified  ‘part’  methods  show  that  place  associations  render 
the  act  of  connection  in  ‘part’  learning  extremely  difficult. 

(2)  These  injurious  place  associations  are  statable  in  both 
the  temporal  and  spatial  series. 

(3)  Modified  ‘part’  methods  are  originated  which  eliminate 
or  negate  to  a  degree  some  of  the  harmful  place  associations. 

(4)  These  modified  ‘part’  methods  prove  far  more  efficient 
than  either  the  pure  ‘part’  or  ‘whole’  methods.  This  is  true 
for  rats  and  humans. 

(5)  These  methods  have  been  named  the  ‘progressive  part’, 
‘elaborative  part’,  ‘direct  repetitive’,  and  ‘reversed  repetitive’. 
The  relative  values  of  these  vary  for  rats  and  humans.  Dif¬ 
ferences  are  statable  in  terms  of  the  recognitive  capacity. 

(6)  The  value  of  these  methods  consists  mainly  in  the  pro¬ 
gressive  and  distributive  handling  they  furnish  to  the  positional 
factors. 

(7)  There  is  no  royal  road  to  mastery  for  the  human  not 
open  to  the  rat.  Both  rats  and  humans  manifest  high  regularity 
in  time  and  energy  expenditure  for  various  motor  methods. 

But  the  cpiestion  immediately  emerges  regarding  the  super¬ 
iority  of  these  ‘modified  part’  methods  over  the  universally 


WHOLE  VS.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING 


47 


efficient  ‘whole’  method.  The  partial  elimination  of  the  posi¬ 
tional  factors  set  up  in  the  mastery  of  the  separate  maze  areas 
not  only  improved  the  scores  secured  in  ‘part’  learning,  but 
produced  results  far  superior  to  those  of  ‘whole’  method  learn¬ 
ing.  If  these  positional  factors  had  been  entirely  eliminated, 
it  looks  as  though  the  results  should  merely  have  equalled 
those  secured  by  the  ‘whole’  method  procedure.  But  the  uni¬ 
versal  superiority  of  certain  of  the  ‘modified  part’  methods 
argues  at  once  that  there  are  certain  inherent  values  to  ‘part’ 
procedure.  A  further  analysis  of  these  part  learning  methods 
must  be  made,  with  a  view  to  ascertaining  their  inherent  ad¬ 
vantages.  Such  an  analysis  is  attempted  in  the  following 
chapter. 


CHAPTER  VI 


Elements  of  Advantage  in  ‘Part'  Learning 

The  results  of  the  preceding  chapter  are  highly  significant. 
It  has  been  shown  that  ‘modified  part’  methods  can  be  de¬ 
vised  which  prove  far  superior  to  the  pure  ‘part’  method  of 
learning.  The  improvements  produced  by  these  new  methods 
have  been  shown  to  depend  partly  upon  the  progressive  and 
distributive  handling  they  furnish  to  the  positional  factors  of 
the  temporal  and  spatial  series.  But  a  result  of  far  greater 
significance  has  been  obtained.  These  ‘modified  part’  methods 
prove  superior  to  the  ‘whole’  method,  even  when  this  latter 
method  is  operating  under  the  favorable  condtion  of  blocked 
returns.  From  a  logical  viewpoint,  this  result  seems  improbable. 
A  method  which  obviates  some  of  the  weaknesses  of  the  ‘part’ 
method  {e.g.,  place  associations)  should  produce  scores  that 
approach  the  results  of  ‘whole’  method  learning  as  a  limit.  If 
place  associations  were  the  only  differential  aspects  between 
‘part’  and  ‘whole’  method  learning,  the  ‘modified  part’  methods 
could  never  excel  the  ‘whole’  method.  Indeed,  the  impossi¬ 
bility  of  devising  any  modifications  of  the  ‘part’  method  that  do 
more  than  partially  obviate  some  of  the  injurious  place  associa¬ 
tions  is  frankly  acknowledged  by  the  writer.  It  is  clear  that 
there  are  factors  operating  in  ‘part’  procedure,  which  are  pro¬ 
ducing  the  remarkable  scores. 

The  fact  that  learning  scores  are  inferior  under  the  ‘part’ 
method  must  not  blind  the  reader  to  the  significance  of  its 
advantages.  These  favorable  factors  may  have  been  operating 
and  yet  been  apparently  submerged  by  the  demonstrated  weak¬ 
nesses  of  the  method.  Again,  the  conclusions  long  ago  reached 
regarding  the  learning  of  verbal  material  must  not  blind  the 
reader.  The  investigators  in  this  field  showed  the  inferiority 
of  pure  ‘part’  learning,  as  has  the  present  research  for  the 
motor  field.  But  none  of  these  former  experimenters  have 


WHOLE  VS.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING 


49 


attempted  to  modify  the  connecting  act.  No  one  has  been 
in  a  position,  therefore,  where  he  was  forced  to  recognize  the 
fundamental  advantages  of  any  ‘part’  method.  Such  a  recog¬ 
nition  logically  depends  upon  empirical  findings  similar  to  those  of 
the  writer,  namely,  that  modifications  of  the  ‘part’  method  not 
only  equal  the  ‘whole’  method  in  efficiency  but  prove  far  su¬ 
perior  to  it.  The  writer  is  not  arguing  against  the  present 
conclusions  regarding  verbal  material.  He  is  merely  pointing 
out  that  there  is  an  angle  of  the  problem  not  yet  faced  by 
the  investigators,  and  showing  the  conditions  in  motor  learn¬ 
ing  that  make  such  an  issue  seem  vital. 

There  seem  to  be  certain  obvious  advanatges  to  any  ‘part’ 
procedure  in  maze  learning.  These  operate  to  produce  learn¬ 
ing  scores  superior  to  ‘whole’  method  results. 

(a)  Transfer. 

The  present  work  of  the  writer  has  presented  definite  data 
regarding  the  maintenance  of  transfer.  (Chapter  IV,  pp.  22- 
23.)  The  formula  for  its  estimation  takes  account  of  the 
trials,  time  and  total  errors  and  gives  a  mathematical  result 
that  is  easily  interpreted.  The  results  tend  to  show  that  transfer 
is  progressively  increasing  through  the  learning  of  four  suc¬ 
cessive  maze  habits.  (See  previous  conclusions,  p.  22.)  If  the 
formulaic  estimations  are  made  for  the  successive  stages  of 
the  ‘modified  part’  methods,  the  same  conditions  of  positive 
transfer  are  again  seen  to  operate.  The  conclusion  is  that  sub¬ 
sequent  maze  habits  are  mastered  far  easier  than  the  earlier 
ones. 

Two  questions  immediately  emerge,  (i)  What  are  the  trans¬ 
fer  items  that  render  successive  maze  habits  more  easily 
set  up?  (2)  Do  not  these  operate  when  the  maze  is  being  learned 
as  a  whole?  Does  the  learner  fail  to  master  the  final  sections  of 
the  maze  (specifically,  the  final  three  quarterly  divisions)  with 
a  progressively  decreasing  energy  expenditure  ?  The  writer 
can  do  little  more  than  speculate  regarding  the  answer. 

(i)  Transfer  items  in  learning  successive  maze  habits. 

General.  By  general  transfer  is  meant  that  there  are  certain 
habits  or  attitudes  that  can  function  unimpaired  in  any  new 


50 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


maze  situation.  These  general  items  refer  in  no  sense  to  the 
details  of  the  new  maze  pattern,  but  solely  to  the  general  char¬ 
acter  of  the  problem.  Chief  of  these  is  probably  the  general 
maze  habit.  Several  definite  elements  are  involved,  (x)  Re¬ 
tracing.  The  dominance  of  the  familiar  has  often  been  com¬ 
mented  upon.  The  return  pathway  is  known  to  be  safe.  The 
rat  seems  natively  inclined  to  leturn  to  the  closed  entrance. 
Final  maze  mastery  means  the  complete  elimination  of  this 
retracing.  Learning  any  maze — long  or  short — actually  in¬ 
hibits  the  retracing  tendency  in  subseciuent  maze  learning, 
(y)  Knowledge  of  the  nature  of  errors.  A  single  maze  mas¬ 
tered  suffices  to  teach  the  learner  the  concrete  meaning  of  the 
blind  alley.  A  cul  de  sac  ceases  to  be  a  detail  that  must  be 
cautiously  explored.  It  comes  to  mean  a  condition  that  must 
be  left  as  soon  as  possible.  (z)  Sense  of  direction.  Some 
learners  have  almost  a  “going  ahead”  instinct.  Others  become 
hopelessly  confused  when  leaving  a  blind  alley  and  learn  only 
through  repeated  trials  to  make  the  turn  that  leads  away  from 
the  closed  entrance.  In  subsequent  mazes,  the  truly  sophisti¬ 
cated  learner  will  enter  the  cul  de  sac,  but  will  proceed  along 
the  forward  pathway  when  he  returns  to  the  true  course.  These 
three  elements  are  fundamental  in  the  development  of  a  general 
maze  habit. 

A  second  item  of  general  transfer  is  consciousness  of  power. 
A  maze  learner  spends  many  minutes  in  apparently  aimless 
wandering.  Hesitation,  ceasing  to  explore  the  blinds,  pausing 
to  wash  and  rest,  etc,,  are  indicative  of  the  rat’s  indecision  and 
lack  of  confidence.  Even  the  human  will  argue  his  inability 
of  getting  through  his  first  long  maze.  Nor  does  this  lack  of 
confidence  become  eliminated  after  the  first  successful  trial. 
For  many  days  the  task  is  an  arduous  one  and  is  approached 
with  hesitation.  With  subsequent  mazes,  however,  the  con¬ 
sciousness  of  power  is  clearly  seen.  No  ‘warming-up’  period 
is  needed.  There  is  no  delay  at  the  entrance.  Work  has  come 
to  mean  invariable  accomplishment  and  reward.  The  entire 
attack  upon  the  new  problem  is  aggressive.  The  learner  has 
learned  to  do  by  previous  doing. 


WHOLE  VS.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING 


51 


Clearly  associated  with  the  above  is  a  third  general  item, 
namely, — proper  emotional  attitude.  It  has  been  shown  that 
a  harmful  emotional  complex  arises  when  the  learner  is  first 
introduced  to  the  maze  situation  and  again  when  he  is  required 
to  connect  small  maze  units.  It  has  been  shown  that  final 
success  cannot  be  attained  until  this  attitude — a  mixture  of  fear, 
indecision,  curiosity,  and  perhaps  anger — has  been  eliminated. 
In  its  place  comes  an  attitude  strongly  conducive  to  success. 
Confidence,  elation  and  hope  may  be  descriptive  of  this.  Irre¬ 
spective  of  anthropomorphic  criticisms,  the  writer  is  content 
to  believe  that  the  maze  learner — animal  as  well  as  human — 
does  attack  the  second  maze  problem  with  an  entirely  different 
and  far  more  beneficial  attitude  from  that  which  maintained 
throughout  almost  the  entire  first  learning  period. 

Specific.  By  specific  transfer  is  meant  a  certain  definite 
maze  habit  that  can  function  partially  or  unimpaired  in  a  new 
maze  situation.  The  writer  is  referring  directly  to  the  details 
of  the  maze  patterns.  Certain  ones  may  be  commented  upon. 
If  the  first  maze  has  taught  the  learner  that  a  long  run  is  to 
be  followed  by  a  turn  to  the  right  rather  than  to  the  left; 
by  a  turn  of' 180  degrees  rather  than  90;  by  a  sharp,  cautious 
turn  of  180  degrees  rather  than  a  wide,  safe  turn  of  the  same 
type,  in  so  far  as  the  second  maze  possesses  like  elements, 
specific  transfer  will  tend  to  operate.  A  concrete  example  of 
this  is  found  in  Maze  A  used  throughout  the  experiment.  Cul 
de  sacs  numbered  3,  6,  9,  12  were  constant  in  location  for  the 
four  distinct  maze  units;  were  all  approached  by  making  a 
turn  to  the  left;  were  each  met  with  after  the  same  time  and 
distance  factors  had  functioned;  were  the  third  and  final  cul 
de  sacs  for  each  motor  unit.  (See  Figure  I.)  When  the  maze 
was  learned  as  a  whole,  each  of  these  errors  was  frequently 
made.  Nos.  6,  9,  and  12  (the  final  error)  were  especially  nu¬ 
merous.  ■  In  learning  the  four  maze  sections  separately  and 
successively  (as  did  the  ‘part’  learners),  nos.  6  and  9  were 
rarely  entered  and  no.  12  practically  not  at  all.  The  maze 
had  been  designed  with  a  view  of  establishing  a  partial  identity 
of  detail  for  the  four  sections,  so  that  this  element  of  specific 


52 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


transfer  might  be  partially  tested.  The  present  evidence,  though 
limited,  seems  to  argue  for  the  transfer  of  this  specific  motor 
item. 

General  elements  of  transfer  probably  do  not  operate  at  their 
full  value  until  the  third  or  fourth  maze  is  being  mastered. 
It  seems  to  the  writer  that  they  should  progressively  increase 
in  strength  to  a  maximum  and  thereafter  remain  constant. 
Specific  elements  of  transfer  probably  operate  differently.  With 
an  increase  in  number,  these  specific  elements  probably  tend  to 
generate  an  inhibition  when  later  motor  units  are  being  mas¬ 
tered.  No  rule  can  be  stated,  but  it  seems  to  the  writer  that 
specific  transfer  should  increase  to  a  maximum  (probably  dur¬ 
ing  the  learning  of  three  or  four  simple  maze  habits)  and  there¬ 
after  should  operate  with  a  progressively  decreasing  valency, 
even  to  a  negative  or  harmful  level.  Controlled  laboratory 
testing  may  refute  these  mere  theories,  and  also  the  rough 
analysis  given  above  of  the  transfer  qualities.  Certainly  noth¬ 
ing  beyond  mere  speculation  is  here  proposed.  The  hope  of 
the  writer  is  that  some  experimenter  will  set  to  work  to  isolate 
the  transfer  qualities,  both  general  and  specific. 

The  above  sections  have  been  concerned  with  the  principles 
of  transfer  that  operate  in  rendering  the  second  or  subsequent 
maze  habits  more  easily  set  up.  Now,  in  that  both  ‘part’  and 
‘modified  part’  methods  of  learning  call  for  the  mastery  of  new 
problems  after  one  or  more  related  ones  have  been  learned, 
it  follows  that  the  transfer  factors  can  operate  to  their  fullest 
strength  when  learning  is  by  some  part  method.  Transfer  is 
fully  utilized  when  the  maze  problem  is  broken  up  into  unit 
sections.  This  is  a  great  element  of  strength  in  any  part  pro¬ 
cedure.  But  does  this  argue  that  these  same  transfer  effects 
fail  to  operate  when  the  maze  is  learned  in  toto?  If  not,  a 
transfer  hypothesis  will  fail  to  explain  why  ‘modified  part’ 
methods  produce  better  results  than  the  original  ‘whole’  pro¬ 
cedure. 

(2)  Transfer  in  ‘whole’  method  learning. 

General.  Adopting  the  analysis  given  above  as  truly  descrip¬ 
tive  of  transfer  qualities  operating  in  ‘part’  learning,  it  is  nec- 


WHOLE  VS.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING 


53 


essary  to  see  if  these  operate  when  a  large  maze  is  being  mas¬ 
tered  as  a  whole.  First  for  consideration  is  the  general  maze 
habit,  (a)  Retracing.  This  is  one  marked  characteristic  of 
‘whole’  method  learning.  By  many  partial  returns  and  many 
frequent  ones  for  the  entire  length  of  the  return  pathway,  the 
subject  finally  learns  that  the  retracing  must  be  discontinued. 
Yet  this  retracing  may  continue  until  the  last  four  successful 
runs.  Chapter  III  brought  out  the  fact  that  this  retracing  is 
probably  useless  and  even  harmful.  The  ‘part’  learners  are 
forced  to  inhibit  retracing  when  their  problem  is  simple  and 
when  the  retracing  cannot  take  much  time  and  accumulate  many 
errors.  They  master  this  aspect  of  the  general  maze  concept 
under  simple  conditions,  the  ‘whole’  learners  under  complex 
ones.  Also,  a  knowledge  of  the  uselessness  of  retracing  gained 
through  the  earlier  section  of  the  entire  maze  fails  to  prevent 
retracing  in  the  final  maze  areas.  With  Maze  A,  the  greatest 
amount  of  retracing  (after  the  earlier  trials)  was  from  the 
terminal  point  of  the  third  division  (the  end  of  Section  III) 
and  error  no.  lo  in  Section  IV.  With  Maze  B,  the  greatest 
tendency  was  to  enter  the  final  cul  de  sac  and  to  retrace  there¬ 
from.  It  appears  conclusive  that  ‘whole’  method  learning  fails 
to  make  full  use  of  the  general  non-retracing  concept  in  the 
final  areas  of  the  maze.  ‘Part’  method  learning  is  exactly  op¬ 
posed  to  this  condition,  for  the  final  motor  units  are  learned 
almost  without  retrace  errors.  (Tables  I  and  III.)  (b)  knowl¬ 
edge  of  the  nature  of  errors.  The  earlier  sections  of  the  total 
maze  suffice  to  develop  this  concept.  Were  it  not  for  the  emo¬ 
tional  complications,  the  latter  sections  of  the  maze  could  be 
run  with  increasing  skill,  just  as  if  the  areas  were  being  mas¬ 
tered  as  successive  parts,  (c)  Sense  of  direction.  Here,  again, 
there  is  no  logical  reason  why  the  subject  should  not  have 
learned  in  the  first  part  of  the  maze  which  of  the  two  possible 
turns  from  the  cul  de  sac  meant  a  return  direction.  Fear, 
hesitation,  etc.,  are  leading  the  runner  to  take  the  return  path¬ 
way,  however,  so  that  the  transfer  values  are  not  allowed 
to  operate. 

In  the  second  place,  the  consciousness  of  power  is  almost 


54 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


ineffectual.  For  many  succeeding  runs  both  the  rat  and  the 
human  proceed  cautiously.  Aggressive  attacks  come  only  with 
experience.  And  until  the  maze  is  almost  mastered,  a  high 
initial  speed  will  die  down  long  before  the  final  areas  of  the 
course  have  been  reached.  In  ‘part’  learning,  these  final  areas 
are  mastered  with  great  speed,  but  here  the  ‘whole’  method 
learners  are  the  most  tardy.  Many  acts  of  short  duration,  fol¬ 
lowed  by  desirable  changes  in  activity,  develop  this  needed  con¬ 
sciousness  of  power.  An  act  of  long  duration,  carried  out 
through  many  difficulties,  develops  this  feeling  after  the  time 
for  its  greatest  utility  as  a  learning  tool  has  passed. 

Regarding  a  proper  emotional  tone,  it  has  been  shown  earlier 
that  ‘whole’  method  learning  involves  fear,  hesitation,  etc., 
throughout  almost  the  entire  learning  period.  This  is  naturally 
accumulative,  as  has  been  made  clear  in  earlier  chapters.  Even 
when  fear  is  almost  eliminated,  any  disturbing  factor,  e.g.,  a 
slight  noise,  will  cause  this  injurious  condition  to  operate  again. 
The  entire  run  may  be  affected.  This  disturbance  often  fails 
to  subside  for  many  days.  The  ‘part’  learner  rarely  if  ever 
manifests  such  instability  after  one  short  maze  has  been  mas¬ 
tered.  So  it  seems  as  though  no  favorable  emotional  tone 
can  operate  as  a  transfer  element  in  a  long  maze,  because  of 
the  very  complexity  of  the  course  and  the  many  pitfalls  and 
surprises  involved. 

Specific.  The  writer  has  little  to  say  regarding  specific  transfer 
in  the  entire  act.  However  it  may  have  tended  to  operate, 
it  seems  unable  to  do  so  to  any  great  degree,  this  fact  being 
traceable  mainly  to  the  operation  of  injurious  emotional  con¬ 
ditions.  For  example,  the  duplicated  cul  de  sacs — nos.  3,  6,  9, 
12  in  Maze  A  show  far  greater  frequency  in  ‘whole’  method 
learning  than  in  ‘part’. 

In  summary,  the  writer  is  convinced  that  neither  general  nor 
specific  elements  of  transfer  can  be  utilized  to  any  high  degree 
in  learning  a  complex  motor  problem  when  learning  is  by  the 
‘whole’  method.  The  demonstrated  ability  of  these  transfer 
items  to  operate  at  their  full  value  in  ‘part’  learning  seems  to 
the  writer  to  be  unmistakable  evidence  of  the  advantage  of 


WHOLE  VS.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING 


55 

‘part’  procedures.  This,  taken  in  conjunction  with  the  progres¬ 
sive  elimination  of  the  positional  factors  established  in  ‘modified 
part’  learning,  goes  a  long  way  towards  explaining  the  favor¬ 
able  results  obtained  by  the  ‘modified  part’  methods. 

(b)  Learning  effort  and  length  of  material. 

An  additional  aspect  of  learning  a  motor  problem  by  short 
stages  needs  to  be  considered.  The  relation  between  the  learn¬ 
ing  effort  and  the  length  of  material  needs  to  be  known.  Is 
there  a  law  of  diminishing  returns  operating  that  makes  a  long 
maze  more  than  twice  as  hard  to  master  as  one  only  half  the 
length?  Data  are  at  hand  to  answer  the  problem. 

It  has  been  shown  that  the  units  of  Maze  A  are,  in  number 
of  ,cul  de  sacs,  length  of  true  pathway,  etc.,  exactly  equal. 
Consequently,  each  of  these  is  an  equal  fourth  of  the  entire 
maze.  No  better  motor  situation  could  be  desired  for  the  com¬ 
parison  of  learning  effort  and  length  of  material.  Even  series 
of  nonsense  syllables  furnish  scarcely  more  equitable  bases  for 
comparison.  The  lists  used  are  made  equal  in  length  and  sup¬ 
posedly  in  difficulty.  Roughly,  the  short  maze  sections  seem  to 
satisfy  the  same  conditions.  Even  though  these  sections  may 
differ  in  difficulty  (as  measured  by  the  learning  criteria),  a 
comparison  of  each  of  them  with  the  total  maze  will  give 
results  highly  valuable.  It  is  logically  necessary  to  make  this 
comparison  for  the  entire  four,  since  they  are  integral  parts 
of  the  total  problem  under  consideration.  The  three  learning 
criteria  may  be  brought  together  in  the  following  form- 

ula,-  t  s  e  ’  where  t’,  s’  and  e’  represent  the  records  in 

trials,  time  and  errors  respectively  of  the  control  groups  on 
Section  I,  II,  III,  or  IV  and  t,  s  and  e  the  corresponding  records 
for  the  entire  maze.  Such  a  formula  may  weight  to  an  unfair 
degree  certain  of  the  learning  criteria.  But  it  is  far  from  being 
decided  which  criterion  is  the  best,  so  the  writer  is  inclined 
to  utilize  them  all  in  one  formula.  If  these  criteria  varied 
directly,  such  a  formula  would  not  be  needed. 

The  records  used  are  listed  in  Tables  I,  VI  and  X  for  the 
rats  and  Tables  III,  VI  and  XI  for  the  humans.  The  records 
for  the  learning  of  the  problem  as  a  whole  are  those  where 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


S6 


no  more  retracing  was  allowed  than  normally  occurs  in  the 
learning  of  the  separate  parts  ('whole’  method  with  returns 
prevented)  d  For  Section  I  the  records  of  the  ‘part’  learners 
are  used.  Control  groups  furnish  the  records  for  the  remain¬ 
ing  sections. 

The  results  of  the  formulaic  estimations  are  decidedly 
significant.  For  the  rats  it  is  found  that  15,  i,  3  and  2  percent 
of  the  learning  energy  expended  upon  the  entire  maze  is  re¬ 
quired  to  master  units  I,  II,  III  and  IV  respectively.  With 
the  humans,  the  results  are  4,  6,  i  and  ii  percent.  As  a  final 
average,  the  rats  score  5.25  percent,  the  humans  5.5  percent. 
It  is  clear  that  this  value  would  be  25  percent,  provided  that 
learning  effort  varied  directly  with  the  length  of  material.  The 
figures  argue  that  mazes  of  porportionate  difficulty  and  of  one- 
fourth  the  length  of  a  larger  maze,  require  scarcely  more  than 
one-twentieth  the  learning  effort  needed  to  master  the  larger 
problem.^  This  generalization  holds  for  both  rats  and  humans. 


^  Chapter  III  brought  out  the  logical  necessity  of  making  comparisons 
with  these  data  rather  than  with  the  results  where  freedom  of  retracing 
into  the  return  sections  was  allowed.  Of  course  the  time  and  error  records 
are  far  higher  under  the  non-restricted  conditions. 

-  Ebbinghaus  has  shown  that  there  is  no  direct  relationship  between 
the  length  of  nonsense  series  and  the  learning  effort  required.  He  pre¬ 
sents  two  tables  of  data  {Memory,  pp.  47-49,  Columbia  University  Teachers 
College  Educational  Reprints  No.  3),  these  being  secured  during  two 
testing  periods  separated  by  an  interval  of  three  years.  They  have 
special  value  in  showing  not  only  that  diminishing  returns  for  the  learning 
effort  operate  but  also  that  this  loss  (due  to  excessive  length  of  the  ma¬ 
terial)  is  not  fully  eliminated  when  practice  effect  is  developed  to  its 
maximum.  This  is  shown  by  bringing  together  the  original  data  into  one 
table  and  starring  the  results  from  the  first  testing  series. 


Number  of 
syllables 
in  a  series 

7 

10 

12 

13 

16 

16 

19 

24 

36 


Number  of  repetitions 
necessary  for  first 
errorless  reproduction 
(exclusive  of  it) 

I 

13* 

16.6 

23* 

30 

32* 

38* 

44* 

55 


The  periodic  regularity  in  which  these  results  distribute  is  marked.  The 


WHOLE  VS.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING 


57 


The  significance  of  these  results  for  the  ‘whole’-‘part’  problem 
is  clear.  It  pays — other  things  being  equal — to  learn  a  complex 
motor  problem  by  easy  stages.  Otherwise,  diminishing  returns 
for  the  energy  expenditure  are  secured.  The  causes  of  this 
need  not  be  sought  here,  although  they  are  probably  inherent 
in  the  conditions  of  transfer  discussed  in  the  present  chapter. 
Irrespective  of  causes,  the  facts  of  energy  expenditure  function 
well  in  explaining  the  results  of  ‘modified  part’  procedure.  The 
advantage  of  learning  by  easy  stages,  taken  in  conjunction  with 
transfer  conditions  and  the  progressive  elimination  of  the  posi¬ 
tional  factors  set  up  in  ‘part’  learning,  go  a  long  way  not  only 
toward  explaining  the  superiority  of  the  ‘modified  part’  methods 
over  the  ‘whole’  method,  but  also  toward  pointing  out  the  in¬ 
herent  advantages  of  any  ‘part’  procedure.  There  are  probably 
other  explanatory  factors  that  have  not  been  suggested.  The 
above  are  not  meant  to  be  exhaustive.  They  do  represent  to 
the  writer,  however,  the  only  explanations  he  can  now  set  for¬ 
ward  to  meet  a  novel  and  exceedingly  interesting  experimental 
finding. 

The  following  summary  lists  the  important  developments  of 
the  chapter : 

(1)  Transfer  factors  operate  at  their  full  value  in  ‘part’ 
procedure. 

(2)  This  transfer  is  general  and  specific.  The  important 
general  items  are  a  general  maze  habit,  consciousness  of  power, 
and  favorable  emotional  tone.  The  specific  items  refer  to  the 
details  of  the  maze  pattern. 

(3)  Transfer  fails  to  render  the  final  areas  of  a  complex 
motor  problem  more  easily  mastered.  ‘Part’  procedure  re¬ 
verses  these  conditions. 

(4)  Learning  effort  does  not  vary  directly  with  the  length 

chief  significance  of  these  results  for  the  present  research  rests,  however, 
upon  the  fact  that  they,  taken  in  conjunction  with  the  results  of  the  present 
research,  make  it  possible  to  state  that  the  law  of  diminishing  returns 
operates  (a)  in  the  mental  field,  (b)  for  the  learning  of  motor  and  verbal 
material,  (c)  for  humans  and  animals,  and  (d)  irrespective  of  earlier 
practice,  though  this  is  contradicted  by  Meumann. 


58 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


of  material.  Diminishing  returns  are  secured  as  the  material 
is  lengthened. 

(5)  The  inherent  advantages  of  ‘part’  learning  are  mainly 
the  complete  utilization  of  the  transfer  items  and  the  avoidance 
of  diminishing  returns  due  to  the  excessive  length  of  the  motor 
problem. 

(6)  The  inherent  advantages  of  ‘part’  learning,  together  with 
the  elimination  of  place  associations,  explain  the  universal  su¬ 
periority  of  ‘modified  part’  methods  in  motor  learning. 


CHAPTER  VII 


Massed  vs.  Distributed  Effort  in  ‘Whole’  and  ‘Part’ 

Learning 

The  relation  of  the  distribution  of  learning  effort  to  the 
‘whole’-‘part’  discussion  is  obvious.  Nothing  totally  new  is  being 
injected  into  the  research.  Heretofore  the  writer  has  considered 
the  ‘whole’  and  ‘part’  methods  when  two  trials  were  allowed 
per  day.  Limiting  the  number  of  trials  per  day  is  necessary 
when  rats  are  being  employed  for  the  experimentation.  Con¬ 
sequently,  the  same  time  relationships  had  to  be  maintained 
for  the  humans,  otherwise  no  comparative  statements  could  be 
made.  Under  these  defined  learning  conditions,  it  has  been 
shown  that  the  ‘whole’  method  of  learning  is  superior  to  the 
‘part’  method  but  that  the  bad  aspects  of  the  ‘part’  method 
can  be  so  eliminated  as  to  produce  ‘modified  part’  methods  far 
superior  to  the  original  ‘whole’  method.  These  generalizations 
have  been  shown  to  hold  for  both  rats  and  humans.  But  it  is 
obvious  that  no  comparison  can  be  made  with  any  previous 
work  on  humans,  where  verbal  material  was  used.  Massed 
effort  has  always  been  used  in  the  ‘whole’-‘part’  testing,  whether 
the  learning  was  nonsense  material,  prose  or  poetry.  Hence,  the 
writer  desires  to  find  whether  the  relative  value  of  the  ‘whole’ 
vs.  the  ‘part’  methods  depended  to  any  degree  upon  massing 
or  distributing  the  learning  effort.  With  maze  results  estab¬ 
lished  for  massed  learning  conditions,  comparisons  might  then 
be  made  with  the  verbal  results. 

The  experimental  literature  contains  numerous  references  to 
the  value  of  distributed  effort  in  motor  learning.  Browning, 
Brown  and  Washburn  (2)  early  showed  that  such  distribution 
was  favorable.  Murphy  (12)  has  just  published  his  results  for 
javelin  throwing.  His  conclusions  are  based  upon  the  records 
of  groups  practicing  one,  three  or  five  times  per  week.  He  is 
inclined  to  generalize  for  rote  and  logical  learning  as  well  as 


6o 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


for  motor.  “Better  work,  for  the  amount  of  time  expended, 
can  be  done  in  our  schools  (both  for  hand  manipulations  and 
also  so-called  mental  work),  through  a  distribution  of  three 
times  per  week  than  through  a  distribution  of  five  times  per 
week.”  Ulrich  showed  that  rats  learned  the  maze  with  fewer 
trials  when  effort  was  distributed  to  trials  every  third  day. 
No  human  maze  experimentation  has  been  published.  No  com¬ 
parative  experimentation  has  been  done  with  rats  and  humans 
to  test  out  the  respective  value  of  massed  vs.  distributed  effort.^ 
So  far  as  regards  the  ‘whole’  and  ‘part’  methods  in  relation 
to  the  distribution  question,  the  literature  shows  that  the  matter 
has  never  been  treated.  The  present  chapter  is  concerned  with 
this  problem. 

Six  new  groups  of  humans  were  secured.  Each  group  in¬ 
cluded  six  subjects.  Each  group  was  taught  Maze  A  by  one 
of  the  methods  described  in  earlier  chapters.  These  in  order 
were  as  follows :  ‘Whole’,  with  returns  allowed,  ‘whole’,  with 
returns  prevented,  ‘total  part’,  ‘progressive  part’,  ‘direct  repeti¬ 
tive’,  and  ‘reversed  repetitive.”  Preliminary  instructions, 
methods  of  data  gathering,  etc.,  were  the  same  as  in  previous 
experiments.  The  sole  difference  was  that  no  time  was  allowed 
to  elapse  between  trials.-  As  soon  as  a  run  was  completed,  the 
subject  was  given  subsequent  trials,  with  no  time  for  rest, 
conversation,  removal  of  the  hand  from  the  maze  area,  etc. 
Continuous  attack  upon  the  learning  problem  was  absolutely 
secured. 

The  behavior  of  these  groups  merits  some  comment.  The 

^  Obviously,  a  problem  would  need  to  be  relatively  simple  to  permit 
mastery  by  the  rat  in  successive  trials.  The  initial  emotional  complex, 
constant  distractive  tendencies,  etc.,  render  massed  tuition  extremely  difficult. 
However,  with  a  simple  problem,  thorough  preliminary  training,  utilization 
of  hunger,  sex  and  other  stimuli,  the  rat  may  be  taught  a  motor  problem 
without  the  customary  time  interval.  At  least  the  learning  could  be 
concentrated  within  a  few  hours. 

2  Perrin’s  recent  comparative  work  on  adult  and  child  maze  learning 
allowed  “all  the  time  between  trials  they  desired  for  rest,  physical  and 
mental  recreation.”  Such  is  no  doubt  needed  with  the  children.  It  is  a 
question,  however,  whether  conclusions  may  justly  be  drawn  between  in¬ 
dividual  children  or  between  children  and  adults  if  the  time  interval  is  not 
constant  as  to  length. 


WHOLE  VS.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING  6i 

group  learning  the  maze  as  a  whole  and  with  no  prevention  of 
returns  attacked  the  problem  well.  After  a  few  trials,  improve¬ 
ment  ceased  and  the  learning  act  became  very  trying.  A  long, 
period  of  almost  random  activity,  hurried  yet  purposeless  ex¬ 
ploring  ensued.  Each  student  showed  signs  of  nervousness 
when  the  first  dozen  trials  failed  to  bring  success.  To  this  ex¬ 
citability  the  men  were  even  more  susceptible  than  the  women. 
As  each  successive  trial  continued  to  bring  errors,  the  run 
became  more  hurried,  jerky  and  erratic.  Generally  the  student 
reached  a  stage  in  his  learning  where  he  knitted  his  brow, 
closed  his  eyes,  checked  his  speed  and  settled  down  to  a  slow, 
laborious  process  of  eliminating  certain  specific  errors  per  trial. 
The  period  of  high  tension  remained  and  the  completion  of 
the  final  successful  runs  always  brought  unmistakable  relief. 
The  ‘whole’  method  with  returns  prevented  produced  behavior 
such  as  the  above,  yet  this  was  to  a  lesser  degree.  Without  ex¬ 
ception,  the  ‘part’  methods  failed  to  arouse  a  strong  emotional 
tone  or  to  cause  nervous  excitement.  The  attack  upon  the  prob¬ 
lem  was  always  steady,  irrespective  of  the  method  employed. 
The  act  of  connection  in  ‘part’  learning  was  singularly  free 
from  confusion,  this  being  a  very  marked  departure  from  the 
behavior  so  characteristic  of  both  humans  and  rats  when  learn¬ 
ing  was  broken  by  the  twenty-four  hour  interim.  The  data 
of  these  experiments  in  massed  effort  are  compared  with  those 
of  the  humans  when  effort  is  distributed  in  Table  XXI.  In 
Table  XXII  is  found  the  percentage  of  advantage  or  disad¬ 
vantage  obtained  by  massing  effort.  The  table  is  complete  for 
trials,  time,  and  errors  of  the  various  types.  See  pages  77,  78. 

In  agreement  with  the  previous  conclusions,  massing  the 
learning  effort  is  highly  unfavorable  for  certain  methods.  It 
increases  the  number  of  trials,  the  learning  time,  and  all  types 
of  errors  when  the  ‘whole’  method  of  learning  is  used.  This 
is  true  irrespective  of  the  prevention  of  returns  and  applies 
to  all  measuring  criteria.  Without  exception  there  is  a  marked 
percentage  of  gain  when  distribution  occurs.  This  is  true  also 
for  two  ‘part’  methods — fhe  ‘direct  repetitive’  and  the  most 
efficient  for  all  human  and  animal  learning  under  distributive 


62 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


conditions,  namely  the  ‘progressive  part’.  The  advantage  is, 
however,  less  marked  than  for  ‘whole’  method  learning.  In 
some  items  of  comparison,  the  absolute  differences  are  almost 
negligible.  Significant  changes  occur  so  far  as  the  total  ‘part’ 
method  and  the  ‘reversed  repetitive’  are  concerned.  By  all 
measuring  criteria,  the  ‘part’  method  gains  over  distributive 
results  and  the  same  is  true  for  the  ‘reversed  repetitive’  (with 
slight  and  unimportant  exceptions  for  this  latter.) 

But  the  significant  results  are  not  so  much  in  reference  to 
the  comparison  of  the  same  method  under  these  changed  tem¬ 
poral  conditions  as  to  the  important  fact  that  each  ‘part’  method 
shows  superior  (by  all  criteria  of  measurement)  to  either  type 
of  ‘whole’  method,  thus  altering  very  markedly  the  ‘whole’- 
‘part’  results  set  forward  in  earlier  chapters.  Furthermore, 
the  total  ‘part’  method  (so  unsuccessful  under  distributive  con¬ 
ditions)  under  massed  conditions  becomes  not  only  better  but 
almost  the  best  of  all  available  methods.  It  is  even  slightly 
more  efficient  than  the  universally  superior  ‘progressive  part’  in 
point  of  trials  but  slightly  weaker  in  time  and  considerably  so  in 
total  errors.  Consequently  it  is  considered  second  in  advantages. 
But  its  rise  in  the  efficiency  scale  under  these  massed  conditions  is 
unmistakable.  Its  great  gain  consisted  not  so  much  in  the  learn¬ 
ing  of  the  four  units  but  in  the  connecting  act.  For  Section 
I  the  total  error  record  was  greater  than  in  the  distributed  case, 
the  remaining  three  being  almost  identical.  (24,  12;  10,  9;  5,  4; 
7,  5  for  I,  II,  III,  IV  respectively).  The  change  of  results  for 
the  ‘part’  method  are  so  marked  that  a  full  comparison  of  the 
data  is  made  in  Table  XXIII.  The  difference  in  scores  is  es¬ 
pecially  obvious  in  the  I-IV  act  of  connection.  See  page  78. 

It  is  evident  that  explanation  is  needed  for  these  massed 
effort  results.  It  needs  to  be  shown  why  each  type  of  ‘part’ 
learning  is  superior  to  that  of  the  ‘whole’.  These  results  are 
not  only  opposed  to  those  secured  under  distributive  conditions 
but  exactly  contradictory  to  the  ones  commonly  accepted  for 
verbal  learning.  In  the  latter,  learning  effort  is  always  massed, 
yet  herein  have  the  results  always  been  in  favor  of  the  ‘whole’ 
method  procedure.  The  writer  can  do  little  more  than  speculate. 


WHOLE  VS.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING  63 


Until  the  problem  of  massed  effort  is  understood  and  its  re¬ 
lationship  not  only  to  distributed  effort  but  also  to  different 
types  of  problems  established,  final  conclusions  directed  towards 
the  Svhole’-'part’  procedure  are  impossible.  Each  is  a  separate 
problem,  yet  each  depends  upon  and  illuminates  the  other. 

Learning  of  the  maze  problem  passes  through  two  distinct 
stages,  (a)  Elimination.  The  subject,  after  getting  acquainted 
with  the  general  character  of  the  maze,  settles  down  to  the 
arduous  task  of  eliminating  all  types  of  errors.  The  enormous 
time  expenditure  and  the  great  number  of  errors  made  during 
the  first  half  of  the  tuition  period  point  out  the  difficulty  of 
this  learning  act.  Increasing  complexity  of  the  maze  brings 
increasing  demands  upon  the  subject.  These  specific  demands 
have  been  commented  upon  at  length  in  earlier  chapters.  Now, 
with  massed  effort  the  confusion  is  cumulative  from  trial  to  trial. 
In  place  of  the  errors  being  gradually  eliminated,  instability  is 
generated.  Through  this  period  there  is  little  chance  that  the 
needless  movements  of  one  trial  will  fail  to  appear  in  the  ones 
directly  following.  Even  their  disappearance  for  one  trial  ar¬ 
gues  little  for  their  permanent  loss.  It  is  during  this  stage  of 
discovery  and  elimination  that  distributed  effort  has  its  place. 
The  many  useless  movements  tend  to  fall  away  from  the  suc¬ 
cess-bringing  series,  while  the  latter  seems  to  affect  the  serial 
bonds  during  the  interim  of  inactivity.  With  rats  and  humans, 
the  measured  improvement  is,  from  day  to  day,  too  commonplace 
to  warrant  comment. 

(b)  Mechanization.  Logically  following  the  preceding  but 
chronologically  inseparable  from  its  final  stages,  is  the  period 
where  the  subject  is  hammering  in  the  final,  sensori-motor  co¬ 
ordinations.  Tendencies  to  enter  cul  de  sacs,  to  retrace,  etc., 
are  still  present  but  these  are  swamped  in  the  rapid,  forward¬ 
going  activity.  The  function  of  this  period  is  to  render  definite 
the  elimination  of  these  errors  and  to  increase  the  speed  of  the 
run.  Exploration  has  now  no  place.  The  activity  is  well  on 
its  road  to  the  habitual  level.  Its  momentum  is  its  major  guar¬ 
antee  of  success.  This  is  the  time  for  massed  effort.  By  suc¬ 
cessive  repetitions  of  the  successful  runs,  the  tendencies  to  error 


64 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


become  less  and  less  liable  to  function,  as  the  fixation  proceeds 
rapidly  and  surely.  In  a  strictly  psychological  sense,  the  subject 
who  hesitates  is  lost.  He  can  now  drive  out  of  the  series  the 
danger-giving  elements  and  so  render  their  elimination  perma¬ 
nent.  In  distributing  his  effort,  such  permanent  elimination  is 
certainly  less  slow  in  attainment.  Efficiency  demands  massing 
of  the  learning. 

The  principles  of  elimination  and  mechanization  have  imme¬ 
diate  applicability  to  the  ‘whole’-‘part’  learning  problem.  They 
show  at  once,  no  doubt,  why  any  form  of  the  ‘part’  method  is 
superior  to  the  ‘whole’  under  massed  conditions.  The  parts  as 
such  were  always  simple.  Hence,  the  need  for  distribution  of 
learning  effort  was  reduced  to  a  minimum.  (It  seems  logical 
that  distributive  and  massed  efforts  should  be  equally  efficient 
for  simple  mazes.  This  needs  to  be  shown  experimentally). 
However,  even  in  our  simple  I-IV  sections,  there  was  slight  ad¬ 
vantage  with  distribution.  (See  figures,  p.  62.)  The  act  of 
connection  demanded  speedy,  non-exploring,  rapidly  succeeding 
attacks.  Massing  the  effort  provided  this,  hence  making  all  the 
‘part’  methods  highly  efficient.  With  the  ‘whole’  methods  there 
was  no  opportunity  for  the  great  number  of  useless  movements 
to  disappear  automatically  during  the  time  interval.  Rather, 
they  remained  to  mar  the  runs,  to  delay  final  success,  and  in¬ 
crease  the  nervousness  of  the  subject.  Only  by  the  greatest 
effort  were  they  finally  eliminated.  If  the  subject  had  been 
able  to  break  up  the  task  of  error  learning  into  simple,  easily 
mastered  units,  to  eliminate  errors  and  mechanize  each  unit,  and 
to  expend  his  best  energies  in  rapid  attacks  at  connection,  suc¬ 
cess  would  have  been  far  more  quickly  attained. 

It  appears,  therefore,  that  reliance  upon  massed  or  distributed 
effort  depends  somewhat  upon  three  fundamental  factors,  (i) 
Difficulty  of  the  problem.  The  problem  with  many  possibilities 
of  error  needs  distributive  handling.  This  need  decreases  with 
decreasing  difficulty  of  the  problem.  (2)  Stage  of  the  learning. 
In  the  discovery  and  eliminating  stages,  distribution  is  essential. 
In  the  stage  of  strenuous  mechanization,  massing  of  effort  is 
advisable.  (3)  Method  of  learning.  The  ‘whole’  method  re- 


WHOLE  VS.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING  65 


quires  distribution  for  easy  mastery,  the  ‘part’  methods  may 
require  distribution  for  mastery  of  the  units  but  massing  for 
connection.  Under  massed  conditions  the  ‘part’  methods  are 
always  more  efficient. 

These  principles  seem  fundamental  for  the  human  pencil 
maze  situation.  They  may  need  expansion  or  qualification. 
They  are  put  forward  as  suggestive  and  with  the  hope  that 
experimentation  may  be  directed  toward  a  problem  regarding 
which  there  is  practically  no  knowledge.  It  may  be  that  the 
results  for  learning  verbal  material  under  massed  and  dis¬ 
tributed  conditions  must  be  recanvassed.  It  is  clear  that  one 
or  more  of  four  conditions  must  maintain,  (i)  The  conclu¬ 
sions  of  the  writer  are  not  truly  descriptive  of  the  specific  motor 
problem  discussed.  (2)  These  results,  though  true  for  the 
maze,  are  not  general  for  the  entire  motor  field  of  learning. 

(3)  The  results  in  verbal  learning  (for  all  types  of  material) 
need  reconsideration.  (4)  There  are  no  correlations  to  be 
drawn  between  learning  upon  the  motor  and  ideational  levels. 
The  writer  cannot  agree  to  the  accuracy  of  ( i ) .  He  is  inclined 
to  argue  from  his  results  to  the  general  motor  field  (2).  Any 
opinion  rega,rding  (3)  and  (4)  is  sheer  speculation,  whose 
validity  must  rest  upon  experimental  results. 

The  results  of  this  investigation  of  the  distribution  of  learning 
effort  in  relation  to  the  ‘whole’  and  ‘part’  methods  of  learning 
may  be  summarized  as  follows : 

(1)  Massing  the  learning  effort  is  highly  unfavorable  for 
‘whole’  method  learning.  This  is  in  agreement  with  the  ac¬ 
cepted  results  in  the  experimental  field. 

(2)  The  pure  ‘part’  method  proves  much  more  efficient  than 
when  effort  is  distributed. 

(3)  All  types  of  ‘part’  methods  produce  better  learning  re¬ 
sults  under  massed  conditions  than  do  the  ‘whole’  methods. 
This  superiority  is  demonstrated  by  all  measuring  criteria. 

(4)  The  superiority  of  the  ‘part’  methods  are  probably 
statable  in  terms  of  the  eliminative  and  mechanizing  aspects  of 
the  learning  period. 

(5)  Reliance  upon  massed  or  distributive  effort  depends  upon 


66 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


a  number  of  fundamental  factors.  Chief  of  these  are  the  diffi¬ 
culty  of  the  problem,  the  stage  of  the  learning,  and  the  method 
of  learning. 

(6)  Learning  a  motor  problem  by  ‘part’  methods  produces 
results  that  contradict  the  findings  secured  under  like  massed 
conditions  with  rote  and  logical  material. 

(7)  The  full  significance  of  the  distribution  of  the  learning 
ef¥ort  is  far  from  being  known. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

Comparison  and  Summary 

The  conclusions  of  this  experiment  have  been  cumulative. 
They  have  been  discussed  at  length  in  the  body  of  the  paper 
at  their  point  of  emergence.  It  is  here  merely  in  order  to 
state  the  final  conclusions  regarding  the  propositions  formulated 
in  Chapter  I. 

I.  Efficiency  of  various  ‘whole’-'part’  learning  methods  in  the 
motor  situation. 

a.  The  ‘whole’  method  with  returns  prevented  is  more 
efficient  than  with  returns  allowed. 

b.  The  ‘whole’  method  is  far  more  advantageous  than  the 
‘part’  method. 

c.  The  ‘whole’  method  is  decidedly  less  favorable  than  the 
‘progressive  part’  and  ‘direct  repetitive’  part  methods. 
With  the  rats,  the  ‘reversed  repetitive’  part  methods, 
is  also  more  efficient.  Eailure  for  this  to  prove  so  with 
the  human  is  due  to  the  inability  of  the  kinaesthetic  cue 
to  function  as  the  recognitive  agent. 

d.  The  weaknesses  of  the  ‘part’  method  are  not  due  to 
negative  transfer  in  the  learning  of  the  motor  units, 
disintegration  through  time,  retro-active  inhibition,  con¬ 
tiguity  of  unit  functioning,  nor  unit  incompatibility  in  a 
larger  series.  The  weaknesses  are  due  to  failure  in  the 
act  of  connection,  the  conditioning  factors  being  traced 
to  the  positional  aspects  of  the  temporal  and  spatial 
series. 

e.  ‘Part’  procedure  possesses  certain  inherent  advantages. 
These  are  mainly  the  complete  utilization  of  the  transfer 
items  and  the  avoidance  of  diminishing  returns  due  to 
the  excessive  length  of  the  motor  problem. 

f.  The  strength  of  all  types  of  improved  (‘modified’)  part 
methods  rests  upon  the  progressive  elimination  and  dis¬ 
tributive  handling  of  the  emotional  and  positional 
factors,  together  with  the  inherent  advantages  of  any 
‘part’  procedure. 

II.  Universality  of  various  ‘whole’-‘part’  learning  methods 
in  the  motor  situation. 


68 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


a.  Improvement  of  ‘whole*  method  learning  universally 
follows  when  returns  are  prevented. 

b.  The  pure  ‘part’  method  is  universally  inferior  to  the 
‘whole’  method. 

c.  The  ‘progressive  part’  and  ‘direct  repetitive’  methods  are 
universally  far  more  advantageous  than  the  ‘whole’ 
method.  The  ‘reversed  repetitive’  method  fails  to  at¬ 
tain  like  universality,  owing  to  the  recognitive  inefficiency 
of  kinaesthesis  in  the  human.  In  general,  however,  al¬ 
most  any  type  of  ‘modified  part’  method  is  universally 
to  be  preferred. 

d.  For  all  methods  the  correlations  between  the  various 
learning  criteria  of  trials,  time  and  errors  are  universally 
high.  No  royal  road  in  motor  learning  is  open  to  the 
human  and  denied  to  the  rat.  Certain  changes  in  posi¬ 
tion  for  certain  methods  render  a  cross  correlation  less 
marked.  These  shifts  are  traceable  to  differences  in  the 
retracing  tendency  and  the  recognitive  capacity.  They 
do  not  vitiate  the  comparative  results  listed  in  a-c  above. 

e.  The  pure  ‘part’  and  ‘modified  part’  methods  become  in¬ 
creasingly  superior  to  the  ‘whole’  method  when  learn¬ 
ing  effort  is  massed  rather  than  distributed. 

III.  Comparison  of  motor  learning  and  learning  verbatim. 

(i)  Comparison  of  methods. 

a.  The  ‘whole’  method  with  returns  allowed  is  the  N-Ver- 
fahren  or  “natural”  method  (Steffens). 

b.  The  ‘whole’  method  with  returns  prevented  is  the  G-Ver- 
fahren  (Steffens),  Das  Lesen  im  ganzen  (Ephrussi), 
Lernen  im  ganzen  (Pentschew,  Meumann,  etc.),  iMethode 
globale  (Larguier  des  Bancels)  and  the  standardized 
‘whole’  procedure  of  the  English  investigators  (Lake- 
nan,  Pyle  and  Snyder,  etc). 

c.  The  pure  ‘part’  method  is  the  second  S-Verfahren 
(Steffens),  Das  Lesen  mit  gehaiiften  Wiederholungen 
(Ephrussi),  Lernen  in  Gruppen  (Pentschew),  Methode 
fragmentaire  (Larguier  des  Bancels)  and  the  ‘part’ 
method  of  the  English  experimentation  (Lakenan,  etc). 

d.  The  ‘progressive  part’  method  resembles  to  a  slight  degree 
the  second  part  method  of  Pyle  and  Snyder. 

e.  The  ‘direct  repetitive’  method  resembles  to  a  slight  de¬ 
gree  the  first  S-Verfahren  (Steffens).  The  ‘reversed 
repetitive’  method  finds  no  method  comparable  to  it. 

f.  The  ‘elaborative  part’  method  resembles  to  a  slight  de¬ 
gree  the  first  part  method  of  Pyle  and  Snyder. 


WHOLE  VS.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING  6g 

g.  No  motor  method  employed  is  comparable  to  the  Lernen 
im  gebrochenen  gaiizen  (Pentschew). 

(2)  Comparison  of  results  in  motor  learning  and  learning 
verbatim. 

a.  The  ‘whole’  method  with  returns  allowed  agrees  with 
the  “natural”  method  in  learning  verbatim  as  being  very 
inefficient. 

b.  The  ‘whole’  method  with  returns  prevented  agrees  with 
the  ‘whole’  method  in  learning  verbatim  as  being  superior 
to  the  “natural”  method  and  the  pure  ‘part’  method, 
(waiving  the  single  exception  of  Ephrussi’s  conclusions 
for  learning  nonsensical  material  by  the  ‘part’  method). 

c.  The  ‘progressive  part’,  the  ‘elaborative  part’,  and  the 
‘repetitive  part’  methods,  though  proving  superior  to  the 
‘whole’  method  in  motor  learning,  fail  to  do  so  in  learn¬ 
ing  verbatim.  However,  these  motor  methods  have  not 
been  strictly  duplicated  in  learning  verbatim  (either  with 
rote  or  logical  material),  so  an  exact  comparison  is 
unwarranted. 

e.  The  several  favorable  modifications  of  the  ‘part’  method 
as  employed  in  motor  learning,  need  to  be  tested  in  learn¬ 
ing  verbatim.  Until  such  be  done,  it  seems  unwarranted 
to  argue  that  all  types  of  ‘part’  methods  are  inferior 
to  the  ‘whole’  method  for  the  learning  of  rote  and 
logical  material. 

IV.  Relation  of  the  conculsions  to  practical  schoolroom  ac¬ 
tivities  of  the  motor  type. 

a.  The  complex  motor  problem  is  probably  always  best 
mastered  by  one  of  the  several  ‘modified  part’  methods. 
The  one  universally  to  be  preferred  is  the  ‘progressive 
part’. 

b.  Distribution  of  the  learning  effort  is  of  value  for  the 
‘whole’  method  but  not  for  the  ‘part’  procedure. 

c.  Distribution  of  the  learning  effort  is  of  value  for  the 
exploring  and  eliminative  stages  of  learning,  not  for  the 
rapid  mechanizing  stage.  Here  effort  should  be  massed. 

d.  When  the  conditions  of  learning  call  for  a  massing  of 
learning  effort,  the  ‘whole’  method  becomes  increasingly 
inefficient  with  increase  in  problem  complexity,  the  ‘part’ 
methods  increasingly  more  efficient. 

e.  The  conclusions  drawn  apply  solely  to  the  motor  type 
of  learning,  though  they  suggest  that  the  rote  and  logical 
types  need  additional  experimentation. 


70 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


APPENDIX 

Figure  i.  Maze  A.  Roman  numerals  refer  to  the  four  independent  sec¬ 
tions  of  the  maze.  Dotted  division  lines  indicate  the  entrances  and  exits 
'for  the  different  sections  into  the  food-box.  Also,  they  designate  the 
removable  panels.  The  running  dotted  lines  show  the  true  pathway  for 
each  section.  The  arrows  between  sections  point  out  the  continuous  path¬ 
way  when  the  maze  is  being  learned  as  a  whole  or  in  the  connection  of 
the  separately  learned  units.  The  vertical  arrows  indicate  the  main  en¬ 
trance  and  exit.  Arabic  numerals  designate  the  cul  de  sacs.  Slides  for  the 
prevention  of  returns  occur  after  cul  de  sacs  numbered  3,  6,  9,  12. 


m.  H. 


WHOLE  VS.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING 


71 


Graphs  I-IV.  To  show  graphically  the  learning  curves  of  two  rat  groups 
in  learning  Maze  A  with  and  without  the  prevention  of  returns.  The 
unrestricted  group  had  12  rats,  the  restricted  9.  The  former  is  represented 
by  the  solid  line,  the  latter  by  the  dotted.  No.  i  is  the  total  error  curve; 
no.  II  for  the  retraces  (Type  C)  ;  no.  Ill  for  the  forward  cul  de  sacs 
(Type  A)  ;  no.  IV  for  the  retrace  cul  de  sacs  (Type  B).  See  Table  VI. 
(The  learning  is  divided  into  ten  equal  stages  as  based  on  the  number 
of  trials  and  the  errors  of  each  tenth  of  the  learning  computed.  See  the 
method  of  Vincent,  The  Function  of  the  Vibrissae  in  the  Behavior  of 
the  White  Rat,  Behavior  Mon.,  i,  5,  1912,  pp.  15-17.) 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


/- 


Trials 

Time 

Errors 

A 

B 

C 

Total 

I 

34 

470" 

37 

2 

13 

52 

II 

2 

33 

I 

0 

2 

3 

III 

14 

127 

9 

0 

5 

14 

IV 

9 

III 

8 

0 

3 

II 

I-IV 

15 

1166 

19 

15 

8S 

119 

Total 

30 

1907" 

74 

17 

108 

199 

Table  I.  A  table  to  show  the  average  number  of  trials,  time  and  errors 
of  nine  rats  in  learning  Maze  A  by  the  ‘part’  method.  In  estimating  the  total 
number  of  runs,  each  sectional  run  is  arbitrarily  counted  as  one-fourth  of 
a  complete  run. 


Errorj 

Trials 

Time 

A 

B 

C 

Total 

Whole 

27 

4174" 

54 

24 

139 

217 

Part 

30 

1907" 

74 

17 

108 

199 

Table  II.  A  table  to  compare  the  average  number  of  trials,  time  and 
errors  of  two  rat  groups  learning  Maze  A  by  the  ‘whole’  and  ‘part’  methods 
respectively. 


Trials 

Time 

Errors 

A 

B 

c 

Total 

I 

6 

198" 

4 

0 

20 

24 

II 

3 

47 

3 

2 

5 

10 

III 

2 

49 

I 

0 

4 

5 

IV 

I 

25 

I 

I 

5 

7 

I-IV 

20 

901 

28 

22 

141 

191 

Total 

_ 

1220" 

37 

2.=; 

175 

237 

Table  III.  A  table  to  show  the  average  number  of  trials,  time  and  errors 
of  seven  humans  in  learning  Maze  A  by  the  ‘part’  method. 


Trials 

Time 

Errors 

A 

B 

C 

Total 

Whole 

12 

641" 

16 

13 

97 

126 

Part 

23 

1220" 

37 

25 

175 

237 

Table  IV.  A  table  to  compare  the  average  number  of  trials,  time  and 
errors  of  two  human  groups,  learning  Maze  A  by  the  ‘whole’  and  ‘part’ 
methods  respectively. 


WHOLE  rs.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING 


73 


Errors 

Trials 

Time 

A 

B 

C 

Total 

Rats 

Whole 

27 

4174" 

54 

24 

139 

217 

Part 

30 

1907 

74 

17 

108 

199 

Humans 

Whole 

12 

641 

16 

13 

97 

126 

Part 

23 

1220 

37 

25 

175 

2.37 

Table  V.  A  table  to  compare  the  averages  of  rats  and  humans  in  ‘whole’ 
vs.  ‘part’  learning.  These  data  are  extracted  from  Tables  I-IV. 


Errors 

Trials 

Time 

A 

B 

C 

Total 

Rats 

Allowed 

27 

4174" 

54 

24 

139 

217 

Prevented 

Humans 

30 

1666 

56 

4 

51 

III 

Allowed 

12 

641 

16 

13 

97 

126 

Prevented 

17 

541 

23 

6 

51 

81 

Table  VI.  A  table  to  compare  the  average  number  of  trials,  time  and  errors 
of  rat  and  human  groups,  learning  a  motor  problem  (Maze  A)  as  a  whole, 
with  returns  allowed  and  prevented. 


Errors 

Trials 

Time 

A  and  B 

C 

Total 

Allowed 

50 

2886" 

188 

124 

312 

Prevented 

50 

1813" 

151 

53 

204 

Table  VII.  A  table  to  show  the  average  number  of  trials,  time  and  errors 
of  two  rat  groups  given  fifty  trials  upon  Maze  B,  with  and  without  the  pre¬ 
vention  of  returns. 


Percentage 
of  Group 

Errors 

Trials 

Time 

1 

A  B 

i 

C 

Total 

Rats 

1 

Allowed 

64 

36" 

2676 

155 

1 19 

274 

Prevented 

54 

33 

1818 

116 

55 

171 

Humans 

663 

Allowed 

100 

33 

2599 

lor  1  155 

407 

Prevented 

100 

51 

2669 

130  1  130 

388 

648 

Table  VIII.  A  table  to  show  the  average  learning  record  of  rat  and  human 
groups  upon  Maze  B  with  and  without  the  prevention  of  returns. 


74 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


Trials 

Time 

Errors 

A 

B 

C 

Total 

Rats 

Whole 

30 

1666" 

56 

4 

51 

III 

Part 

30 

1907 

74 

17 

108 

199 

Humans 

Whole 

17 

541 

23 

6 

51 

81 

Part 

23 

1220 

37 

25 

175 

237 

Table  IX.  A  table  to  compare  the  average  number  of  trials,  time  anc 
errors  of  rat  and  human  groups,  learning  Maze  A  by  the  ‘whole-prevented’ 
and  ‘part’  methods. 


Errors 

Trials 

Time 

A 

B 

C 

Total 

Sec.  II 

Control 

Group 

8 

128" 

6 

I 

6 

13 

Part 

Learners 

2 

32 

I 

0 

2 

3 

Sec.  Ill 

Control 

Group 

20 

254 

19 

2 

14 

35 

Part 

Learners 

14 

127 

9 

0 

5 

14 

Sec.  IV 

Control 

Group 

9-25 

316 

7 

2 

21 

30 

Part 

Learners 

9 

III 

8 

0 

3 

II 

Table  X.  A  table  to  compare  the  average  learning  of  rat  groups  upon  a 
single  maze  (control  group)  with  the  averages  for  the  group  having  pre¬ 
viously  learned  one  or  more  mazes  (Part  Learners). 


Errors 

Trials 

Time 

A 

B 

C 

Total 

Sec.  II 

Control 

Group 

5 

132" 

2 

2 

7 

II 

Part 

Learners 

3 

47 

3 

2 

5 

10 

Sec.  Ill 

Control 

Group 

8 

183 

7 

6 

19 

32 

Part 

Learners 

2 

49 

I 

0 

4 

5 

Sec.  IV 

Control 

Group 

10 

254 

4 

4 

43 

51 

Part 

Learners 

I 

25 

I 

I 

_ 

_ 

Table  XL  As  for  Table  X,  human  learning. 


WHOLE  J'S.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING 


75 


Trials 

Time 

Errors 

A 

B 

C 

Total 

I 

4 

2.5" 

•4 

0 

0 

•4 

II 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

III 

2 

134 

I 

.2 

I 

2.2 

IV 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

Average 

.6 

3-9" 

•35 

•05 

•25 

.65 

Table  XII.  A  table  to  show  the  average  relearning  effort  of  a  group  of 
rats  having  been  taught  subsequent  motor  habits  after  mastering  earlier  ones. 
The  data  are  indicative  of  retro-active  inhibition. 


Trials 

Time 

Errors 

A 

B 

C 

Total 

I  &  III 

.2 

6.3" 

0 

.1 

I 

1. 1 

I-IV 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

II  &  IV 

•3 

5-3 

•33 

0 

0 

•33 

I-IV 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

IV  &  I 

4 

10 

.2 

•3 

1-5 

2 

Table  XIII.  A  table  to  show  the  average  records  of  a  rat  group  in  the 
elimination  and  subsequent  reconstruction  of  specific  motor  units  learned  as 
parts  of  a  larger  motor  situation  (Maze  A). 


Trials 

Time 

Errors 

A 

B 

C 

Total 

I  &  III 

2 

12" 

1.25 

0 

•5 

1-75 

I-IV 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

II  &  IV 

•5 

3" 

•50 

0 

.25 

•75 

I-IV 

I 

24" 

•5 

•25 

•5 

1.25 

IV  &  I 

•5 

lo" 

•25 

0 

1-5 

1-75 

Table  XIV.  As  for  Table  XIII,  human  group  record. 


Time 

Interval 

Trials 

Time 

Errors 

A 

B 

C 

Total 

I 

15  Days 

•  17 

i" 

•  17 

0 

0 

.17 

II 

8  Days 

I 

7 

1-33 

0 

•5 

1-83 

III 

5  Days 

•  17 

•67 

•  17 

0 

0 

•  17 

Average 

9.33  Days 

45 

2.89 

•56 

0 

•  17 

.72 

Table  XV.  A  table  to  show  the  disintegration  through  time  of  the  control 
upon  the  various  maze  sections  as  mastered  in  part  learning,  based  on  the 
average  for  six  rats. 


76 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


Time 

Interval 

Trials 

Time 

Errors 

A 

B 

c 

Total 

I 

13  Days 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

0 

II 

8  Days 

1-5 

9-3" 

.83 

0 

0 

.83 

III 

5  Days 

1-3 

10. 1 

I 

0 

I 

2 

Average 

8.67  Days 

•93 

6.5 

.61 

0 

•3 

•94 

Table  XVT.  As  for  Table  XV,  human  group  records. 


Method 

Errors 

No.  of  Rats 

Trials 

Time 

A 

B 

C 

Total 

Progressive 

Part 

9 

II 

662" 

39 

2 

24 

65 

Reversed 

Repetitive 

8 

17 

00 

00 

22 

5 

49 

76 

Direct 

Repetitive 

II 

21 

1442" 

45 

9 

88 

142 

Whole  Returns 
Prevented 

9 

30 

1666" 

56 

4 

51 

III 

Total  Part 

9 

30 

1907" 

74 

17 

108 

199 

Whole  Returns 
Allowed 

12 

27 

4174" 

24 

139 

217 

Table  XVII.  A  table  to  show  the  average  group  records  for  the  learning 
of  Maze  A  by  standard  and  original  methods.  In  estimating  total  trials  for 
these  methods,  each  section  traversed  is  counted  quite  arbitrarily  as  one- 
fourth  a  run.  This  probably  weights  the  runs  through  the  mastered  sections 
but  never  m  such  a  way  as  would  produce  more  favorable  comparisons  with 
the  whole  or  pure  part  methods.  The  methods  are  listed  in  their  apparent 
order  of  merit,  although  the  three  measuring  criteria  do  not  always  agree 
m  arguing  for  this  order. 


Method 

No.  of 

Trials 

Errors 

Humans 

Time 

A 

B 

C 

Total 

Progressive 

Part 

Direct 

6 

10 

352" 

10 

3 

44 

57 

Repetitive 
Whole  Returns 

6 

II 

618 

15 

II 

70 

96 

Allowed 
Whole  Returns 

6 

12 

641 

16 

13 

97 

126 

Prevented 

Reversed 

6 

17 

541 

23 

6 

51 

81 

Repetitive 

6 

22 

1014 

27 

24 

175 

226 

Total  Part 

6  i 

23  1 

1220 

36 

25 

176 

237 

Table  XVIII.  As  for  Table  XVII,  human  learning' 


WHOLE  VS.  PART  METHODS  IN  MOTOR  LEARNING 


77 


Trials 

Time 

Errors 

A 

B 

c 

Total 

I 

41" 

•4 

.2 

3-4 

4 

2 

26" 

.2 

0 

0 

.2 

3 

33" 

•4 

0 

0 

•4 

4 

24" 

0 

0 

0 

0 

Table  XIX.  A  table  to  show  the  average  time  and  errors  per  trial  of  six 
rats  in  connecting  four  sections,  such  connection  having  been  preceded  by  an 
increasingly  complex  review  of  the  various  units.  This  is  the  nearest  rat 
approach  to  massed  learning  effort. 


Trials 

Trials  and 

Time  and 

Trials  and 

Time  and 

Total  and 

and 

Total 

Total 

Type  A 

Type  A 

Type  A 

Time 

Errors 

Errors 

Errors 

)  Errors 

Errors 

Rats 

.8705 

•832s 

•9451 

.9269 

•7750 

.6775 

Humans 

•8325 

•8325 

1. 0000 

1. 0000 

•8325 

•8325 

Trials 

Time 

Total  Errors 

Type  A  Errors 

Rats  and  Humans ' 

.6180 

■3335 

.3335 

•4465 

Table  XX.  A  table  to  show  the  correlation  between  the  learning  criteria 
for  all  methods,  both  for  rats  and  humans  .  Also,  the  correlation  between 
the  rat  and  human  learning  for  all  methods,  correlation  being  measured  by 


.  _  _  6SD’ 

a  single  learning  criterion.  Ranking  method  P=i — 


Errors 

Method 

Trials 

Time 

A 

B 

C 

Total 

Whole-Returns 

Allowed 

30 

1250" 

41 

27 

192 

260 

12 

641 

16 

13 

97 

126 

Whole-Returns 

Prevented 

25 

1208 

40 

14 

ISO 

204 

17 

541 

23 

6 

51 

81 

Total  Part 

10 

538 

15 

9 

83 

107 

23 

1220 

36 

25 

176 

237 

Progressive 

Part 

14 

536 

24 

10 

62 

96 

10 

352 

10 

3 

44 

57 

Direct 

Repetitive 

24 

716 

37 

7 

76 

120 

II 

618 

15 

II 

70 

96 

Reversed 

Repetitive 

20 

764 

29 

10 

87 

126 

22 

1014 

27 

24 

175 

226 

Table  XXL  A  table  to  compare  the  average  learning  records  of  human 
groups  for  the  various  methods,  with  effort  being  massed  and  distributed. 
The  results  for  massed  effort  always  appear  first. 


LOUIS  AUGUSTUS  PECHSTEIN 


78 


Errors 

Trials 

Time 

A 

B 

C 

Total 

Whole-Returns 

Allowed 

150 

95 

156 

98 

108 

106 

Whole-Returns 

Prevented 

47 

123 

74 

133 

194 

152 

Total  Part 

-57 

-56 

-58 

-56 

-53 

-55 

Progressive 

Part 

40 

52 

140 

233 

41 

68 

Direct 

Repetitive 

118 

16 

147 

-36 

9 

25 

Reversed 

Repetitive 

-9 

-25 

7 

58 

-62 

-44 

Table  XXII.  A  table  to  show  the  percentage  of  advantage  or  disadvantage 
of  massed  in  comparison  with  distributed  effort. 


Section 

Trials 

Time 

Errors 

A 

B 

C 

Total 

54 

93" 

2 

2 

8 

12 

I 

6 

198 

4 

0 

20 

24 

II 

1.2 

45 

I 

I 

7 

9 

3 

47 

3 

2 

5 

10 

2.4 

28 

3 

0 

I 

4 

III 

2 

49 

I 

0 

4 

5 

IV 

2.4 

28 

I 

0 

4 

5 

I 

25 

I 

I 

5 

7 

I-IV 

7.6 

344 

8 

6 

64 

78 

20 

901 

28 

22 

141 

191 

Total 

10 

538 

15 

9 

84 

108 

23 

1220 

37 

25 

175 

237 

Table  XXIII.  A  table  to  compare  the  average  learning  records  of  human 
groups  for  the  ‘part’  method,  with  effort  being  massed  and  distributed.  The 
results  for  massed  effort  always  appear  first. 


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8o 


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BF21.P96v.23 

The  scientific  study  of  the  college 

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